A Meditation on The Ways That Authors Rachel Mckibbens And Natasha Trethewey Use Similar Motifs And Recurring Images To Examine Different Themes In blud And thrall Respectively

When comparing blud by Rachel McKibbens and thrall by Natasha Trethewey, the connections to be made about how the authors use similar motifs are clear. While they are not always discussing the same themes, these collections are an incredible example of how motifs and symbols can be used to express completely different points. That being said, their themes do overlap at times; the authors comment on generational wounds, women of color's experiences, and learned negative behavior, both focusing on said behavior done by their fathers. Trethewey’s main commentary throughout her collection is on the intersectionality of her identity and experiences going through life as a mixed-race woman while McKibbens’ is on the relationship of familial bonds. McKibbens still discusses the fact that she is a woman of color in various pieces, but she seems to be less interested in a conversation about race than she is a conversation about mental health and women’s experiences. Trethewey undoubtedly also comments on her familial ties, though she focuses more on what it means to develop into a woman as a person of color. 

Both of these collections are heavily autobiographical, meaning that throughout this essay, the speaker and author will be referred to interchangeably. Although this is likely not applicable for every single piece, this will create a clearer conversation and dissection. These poets are deeply confessional in nature; therefore, this allows us to discuss the pieces as if the speaker is the author themself. As seen in Mckibbens’ TED talk, Poetry as Therapy, this collection is very much about her life, whereas Trethewey uses ekphrastic poetry to comment on her life as well as her parents’ lives.

Natasha Trethewey’s Thrall explores themes of racial inequalities and familial bonds, specifically focusing on the effect that racial differences have within a familial unit. She navigates those larger overarching themes by tying motifs to them: family & blood, racism & colonization, sex & objectification, and loss & birth. These themes cannot be explored without the support of these motifs. We see Trethewey masterfully thread all of these themes throughout the entirety of the collection while also managing to make each piece feel purposeful and non-repetitive. She often touches on most themes in each piece and yet still comes to a separate conclusion. Looking at just the opener of the collection, it is obvious that there is a focus on the relationship that Trethewey has with her father. 

Rachel McKibbens’ blud explores themes of familial relationships, women, religion, and death through motifs, recurring symbols, and images such as ghosts and disappearing, bodies and specifically mouths, kingdoms and the monarchs that make them up, and what all these relationships have in common. The audience gets to follow McKibbens through the timeline of her life. We see how her father’s objectification of women will later affect the way that she explores her queer identity as well as her relationships with men. This collection examines the deep wounds of generational pain while celebrating the transformative power of love and survival. Her voice does a wonderful job of balancing both tenderness and anger, blending confessional tones with lyrical language. Blud is a testament to the ways we inherit pain, offering its audience a profoundly human exploration of darkness and light. It is a collection that demands attention, inviting reflection on what it means to endure and heal.

“Geography” is one of the few times throughout the collection that Trethewey is no longer writing ekphrastic poetry. While doing so adds an element of allegorical commentary on her relationship with her parents, society, and her self-image, it also forces a level of disconnection. There are many moments where, with the knowledge of Trethewey’s biography, we can superimpose her life experiences onto the piece even when she is simply describing a painting. In “Geography,” however, we see directly into her life experiences. These few poems follow, as the title would suggest, various places in Trethewey’s childhood that hold significance for one reason or another. In “Geography 1.,” we see an example of the motif of knowledge being correlated with her father; oftentimes, we see the motif of knowledge being associated with whiteness or lightness. Here, we see the idea of him being partially in/out of her life through images such as having only “one foot/ on the curb,” and “feign[ing] hitchhiking.”

This piece uses motifs of time, disappearing, or “passing,” as is frequently used throughout this collection, to discuss how the relationship she has with her father was affected by that passage of time. Trethewey often uses this recurring motif when discussing the death of her mother or the time lost with her father. An interesting note to make is that while this collection was written before her father’s passing, much of the collection feels elegiac in reference to both parents' deaths rather than just her mother's. Motifs of death are used in this collection to bring attention to the meaningfulness of time lost with loved ones, as time is another symbol that is tied to the motif of death. Through these intertwined motifs, Trethewey highlights the fragility of human connection and the lingering impact of loss. The collection serves as a poignant meditation on the ways time and death shape our relationships, memories, and sense of self.

“Weight,” McKibbens dedicates this piece to her uncle—seemingly the same uncle discussed in “Three Strikes.” The piece starts in the winter and works its way through to summer. This passage of time allows the audience to gain a better understanding of the uncle’s addiction issues and how bad they were. He is described as “too drunk to count all the pills/ he’s taken” and having “mudstruck veins [and a] shot liver” (lines 8-9: 12). We see just how bad his addiction has gotten and how much it is affecting him and the people around him. Time plays an important part in acknowledging how significant and impactful addiction was in his life and the lives of his family around him. Had McKibbens not emphasized this passage of time, this would not have been made as clear. Lineage is another motif that is brought up in this. For example, the line “what was in the blood stayed,” as if to say that the trauma and experiences that happen to those in our lineage stay in the blood that makes its way to us. It's stained. It will forever affect the lives of those who come after. This piece employs recurring motifs of blood, family lineage, and the passage of time to underscore the pervasive and cyclical nature of generational trauma. Without these motifs being emphasized the way McKibbens does, the theme would not be underscored so clearly. Blood serves as a symbol of both literal and metaphorical inheritance, binding the speaker to a legacy of pain, resilience, and survival. Family lineage is woven throughout the collection, showing how trauma is passed down and shapes the lives of those who come after. McKibbens juxtaposes the weight of inherited wounds with the fleeting nature of time, emphasizing the urgency to confront and heal these deeply rooted scars before they continue to echo across generations. 

McKibbens uses the motif of the passage of time to comment on the urgency to heal generational trauma, while Trethewey uses the same motif rather to comment on the generational trauma persisting. Although both authors comment on generational trauma in general, blud leans into both persistence and healing; that being said, McKibbens tends to streamline her focus onto one in particular for a particular piece. Thrall, however, seems to be less interested in a discussion on the need to heal these generational wounds; it tends to be more implied than anything else. 

“Geography 2.” is a great example of Trethewey leaning more heavily into the idea that generational trauma persists. The piece calls back to the opener of the whole collection when mentioning “wade[ing] in water shallow enough to cross” due to the setting in which it takes place. It feels like a callback to the salmon in the river and her memory of going fishing with her father when she was young. To then reference this piece while also directly discussing the “distance between us [Trethewey and her father],” it sheds more light on her view of her father and their relationship. The line that sticks out the most is “I’m too young to know/ this is foreshadowing.” The self-reflection and near pity that the present Trethewey seems to be showing for her younger self is bittersweet. It’s a moment where the audience feels that Trethewey wants to reach out and help her younger self—to warn her, to let her know that it will be okay and she will live through it. Of course, this is not possible. She knows she will make it through and she knows she can do nothing to stop it. This image alone is one of the most heartbreaking parts of the three-part Geography poem. It finishes with an image of her father being “smaller” and “lost in the distance.” It’s a moment where we see this universal experience of realizing that our parents are not superhero figures, but rather beings that are just as flawed as we are. Again, this is a great example of Trethewey using the motif of time and death to self-reflect on a moment from the past and make it more significant due to the passage of time. We can more easily look backward into time and know the significance of a situation than to know it in the moment. 

In the third section of this mini-collection, we see Trethewey come back to a location with her father that they have not been to for “more than twenty years.” This is noteworthy due to the motif of separation between father and child throughout the collection, a motif that is often allegorically referenced through descriptions of paintings, though here the audience gets to see a peek into her life. This piece is a reconnection of father and daughter using a place where they have history; a location acting as a third party pulling the two together. It’s being used almost as a scapegoat, seen in the line “what he recalls/ of my childhood is here,” inferring that this is separated from the rest of her childhood. It is only one part of it. As if to say that this is the extent of what he could remember due to not fully being present throughout the entirety of it. And even so, it is different from what he remembers because life cannot help but move forward no matter how hard we may try to keep it from doing so. We see this in the bit of dialogue dropped in “It was here, right/ here, he says” as if to say that this connection is lost now. It will never be what it once was. This piece acknowledges that there is a connection between father and daughter, or rather generally between parent and child, that is innate, that cannot be altered over time. This is most clearly seen in the line “We can’t help it -- / already, we’re leaning too hard/ toward metaphor” referencing the fact that both father and daughter are writers, and furthermore that regardless of how painful their history is, that same history is what ties them together. 

The loss of time spent with a parent profoundly affects a child, leaving gaps in their understanding of both themselves and their relationship with that parent. In Trethewey's poem, the separation between father and child is reflected in fragmented memories and a strained attempt at reconnection, where a shared location serves as a symbolic bridge. The father’s selective recollection of their past highlights the incompleteness of his presence, reinforcing the idea that missed time creates an irrevocable distance. Even as the piece acknowledges the innate bond between parent and child, it also conveys the pain of realizing that some moments, once lost, cannot be reclaimed. This tension between connection and disconnection underscores the enduring impact of time lost with a parent, shaping the child’s sense of identity and belonging.

“Poem written with a sawed-off typewriter” focuses on McKibbens’ mother leaving the family. The motif of vanishing is seen immediately in the first line of the piece “guided/ by some blood-orchestral pulse,” yet another reference to blood, or lineage, being what guides someone to or not to do something. She could therefore then be inferring that her mother could not stop this reaction if she tried. However, throughout the collection we see McKibbens grapple with the idea that her mother left her and oftentimes blames it, in large part, on her schizophrenia. This comes full circle as the collection follows McKibbens having children and ending up getting diagnosed with the same disease. Either way, this piece touches on the effect that the lack of connection with a parent has on the child-- in a very similar way that “Geography 3” does. We see this most clearly stated in this piece on lines 7-10. 

I haven’t seen her

in two decades

& I have felt

every year.  (McKibbens 12: lines 7-10)

The writing style in this piece is direct. It hits right where it means to and then moves on. Although the reasoning behind both authors' pointing out this parent-child relationship, or lack thereof, is completely different and comments on different reasons, it is interesting to note that both poets decided they needed to include a discussion on this topic. 

“Enlightenment”  in thrall focuses on the two main themes of race and family, and specifically the relationship between father and daughter and the way it is affected by their difference in race. It deals with the idea of that difference forever being something that keeps them apart, ending on the line “white father, black daughter --/ ... it renders us other to each other.” “Enlightenment” as a title is telling in and of itself, acting as a reference to the time period by the same name as well as Trethewey coming to this realization. We see this in the line “or that my father could believe/ he’d made be better.” It brings up this idea of her father being a quiet or subtle racist. This piece ends with the image of her making a joke out of the situation to break the discomfort; therefore, bringing up the common idea of it being the responsibility of minorities to make white people feel more comfortable about the realities that people of color go through and, in this example, that women of color go through. The burden is often placed on women of color to manage these dynamics by cushioning uncomfortable truths for others, reflecting the systemic pressures they have historically faced to survive and maintain dignity in dehumanizing environments. This intersectional identity is what creates the dissonance between Trethewey and her father. 

The objectification of women of color, particularly Black women, during slavery in the United States, laid the foundation for a legacy of dehumanization and intersectional oppression that persists today. Trethewey uses the motif of the objectification of women and how normalized it’s become to underscore these experiences and the disconnect she has with her father. Black women were reduced to their physicality, often exploited for labor, reproduction, and the fulfillment of white patriarchal desires, erasing their humanity and individuality. In some ways, this is what Trethewey’s father did. Trethewey engages with this legacy through the dissonance between her and her father, rooted in his inability to fully see or validate her identity as a Black woman. 

McKibbens has a strong throughline of objectification and misogyny in her collection. This can be seen in “maybe this will explain my taste in men.” The speaker, whom we can assume to be McKibbens in this scenario due to the way the author discusses the collection, describes a morning she spends with her father. She is young here, supported by her thinking that watching cartoons makes up for her “Dad bust[ing her] face open” (line 1). It’s interesting to note that the speaker says “like a goddamn king,” referring to herself as the male monarch rather than the female. This is significant for a few reasons. “King” feels representative of religious imagery due to Christianity often referring to G-d as a King or heaven as a kingdom. “King” also holds weight because the speaker chooses that instead of ‘queen,’ which foreshadows later works in the collections where we see that the speaker gives more power to men in her life than women. The misogyny that the father shows in the family is mirrored by his daughter because she sees that men can be rewarded for their bad behavior and are treated well regardless of it. We see this when he creates rapport with his daughter by winking at her after lying to his boss as to why he wouldn’t be coming in to work that day. After physically abusing his daughter and then outright lying to his boss, he gets rewarded by his workplace by sending over a singing telegram. The lie he tells is also the direct opposite of what happened, heightening the ironic tone of the poem. Again, this is further showing his daughter that lying is not just acceptable, but required to survive, and that he is morally okay with his lie because he is protecting himself. Moreover, this is not just any singing telegram; they hire a woman to come over dressed absurdly provocative, and the speaker, a young child at the time, sees her “bending at the waist/ to show off her tits.” 

Using this type of crass language is a common thread throughout this collection and it further illustrates the theme of learned objectification of women that we see play out in later pieces. Using syntax this particular creates an almost disgusted tone. Line 18, when the speaker says “poor Dad” after hearing the lie that he tells his boss, this shows us just how much parents affect the outlook their children have in this world. McKibbens uses this to comment on learned bad behavior and generational trauma. 

Rachel McKibbens’ blud and Natasha Trethewey’s Thrall serve as powerful explorations of familial bonds, generational trauma, and identity through the use of recurring motifs and symbols. While both collections deeply examine the influence of parent-child relationships, they approach these themes from distinct perspectives, shaped by their unique lived experiences and identities. Trethewey’s work focuses on the intersection of race and family, using motifs of time, death, and objectification to highlight the challenges of navigating a biracial identity in a racialized society. Meanwhile, McKibbens’ collection leans into the cyclical nature of generational pain, exploring themes of mental health, learned behavior, and the complexities of love within familial structures. Both poets effectively intertwine personal narratives with universal truths, demonstrating how motifs such as lineage, time, and disappearance can carry profound emotional weight. 

Despite their differing focal points, their works complement each other by showcasing the ways trauma and resilience manifest across generations. They demonstrate how motifs like family, lineage, and time can be transformed into powerful tools for exploring distinct themes. Ultimately, blud and Thrall remind readers of the importance of confronting these inherited struggles, whether to better understand them or to seek healing. Their ability to craft such specific, resonant works from shared symbols showcases the versatility of poetry and its capacity to reflect the nuances of individual experience. The use of the same motifs to convey different messages highlights the exceptional skill of both McKibbens and Trethewey, underscoring how poetry as a medium is deeply personal and unique to the writer, allowing for endless interpretations and applications of similar imagery. These collections are not only artistic triumphs but also acts of survival and resistance, offering readers a space for reflection, empathy, and connection.

Works Cited

McKibbens, Rachel. “Poetry as Therapy: Rachel McKibbens at TEDxFlourCity.” YouTube, TEDx Talks, 1 Aug. 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcgKRJYu-5I&ab_channel=TEDxTalks. 

McKibbens, Rachel. Blud. Copper Canyon Press, 2017. 

Trethewey, Natasha D. Thrall: Poems. Mariner Books, 2015.