Former US Poet Laureate Releases Poem About Tulsa Race Massacre

A former U.S. Poet Laureate, and Pulitzer Prize winner, was in Tulsa to release some of her latest work, which is about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and the search for victims.

"It feels really meaningful to me, to be here on this particular day,” Natasha Trethewey said.

Trethewey stepped inside Oaklawn Cemetery for the first time Thursday.

"When I was here before I didn't get to come inside the cemetery. So I wasn't able to even feel the ground or to get up close,” she said.

She had the same view as the rest of the public and the press during excavation work. Her visit to Tulsa was last November.

"I think even the lack of access influences the poem,” she said.

Her poem is being released Thursday night at the Switchyard Festival, in partnership with the Black Wall Street Legacy Festival and Fulton Street Books. The title of her work is "Ground Truth."

"I found a kind of ground truth in other ways, visiting archives, walking around Greenwood,” she said.

Trethewey said her poem is split into two sections: one called "Inner Dispersal Loop I-244 Greenwood," and the other called "Notes for a Poem on the Tulsa Race Massacre."

"You can see that's a very short little sonnet there but then this poem goes on for several pages,” she said, while flipping through the Switchyard magazine.

Trethewey did not want to give away too much before the event, but had this message for her audience.

"What I hope is that people might know something that they didn't know before. It's as simple as that,” she said.

Trethewey will read her poem, and an essay, Thursday at 7:00 at the Greenwood Cultural Center. The event is free.