Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Natasha Trethewey's "Speculation, 1939" is a succinct but rich poetic journey into the aspirations and frustrations of a woman caught in the racial and social complexities of pre-World War II America. The poem opens with the woman considering omens and traditions that promise prosperity-moles on her hands, New Year's dishes like cabbage and black-eyed peas. These serve as a conduit to explore broader themes such as hope, agency, and socio-economic mobility, particularly within the racial and cultural landscape of 1939.

The woman's "palms itching with promise" indicate her desperate yearning for change, invoking an old superstition that itchy palms signify coming wealth. The phrase "Money coming soon" is both hopeful and ambiguous, teasing a future that is at once promising and uncertain. Her "left-eye twitch," another omen, solidifies her anticipation, signaling the potential of her dreams coming to fruition. This reliance on signs and superstitions serves as a coping mechanism, a way for her to navigate a world where her choices are constrained.

Her current employment situation is described as rife with discomfort. There is the "elevator switch," a tedious job that encapsulates her dissatisfaction, and then the "white men's sideways stares," which layer racial and gendered tension onto her work environment. These "closed-in spaces" serve as a metaphor for the broader societal constraints she faces-limited by race, gender, and class.

She yearns for something "finer like beauty school or a milliner's shop," where her interactions would revolve around "marcelled hair, felt, and tulle," materials that embody a more tactile and aesthetic fulfillment than her current occupation. These dreams also suggest a degree of independence and creative agency that her current life lacks. Yet, the rhetorical question "What's to be gained from this New Deal?" adds a layer of cynicism, invoking Roosevelt's economic policy aimed at bringing the nation out of the Great Depression. The question subtly critiques the limited reach of such policies, especially for Black women in the South, for whom the 'New Deal' offers little real change or opportunity.

The poem concludes with a return to her current reality of "all-day standing around," a monotonous cycle encapsulated in the image of the "elevator lurching up, then down." It's a poignant note on which to end-highlighting the gap between her aspirations and her current state. Yet, in her planning and speculating, in her "time to think," the woman's imagination itself becomes an act of defiance, a small space where she can dream and, for a moment, escape the limitations of her surroundings.

Overall, "Speculation, 1939" is a powerful lens through which to examine the complexities of race, gender, and class in a particular historical context. Trethewey weaves together personal and political narratives, capturing the eternal human struggle for a better life even within the stifling constraints of systemic inequalities.

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