Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus, or the Mulata," by Natasha Trethewey, serves as a powerful reclamation of a woman's identity often lost to the gaze of art history. The poem appears to be an ekphrastic response to a work of art, most likely inspired by Diego Velázquez's "Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus," a painting that captures a kitchen maid amidst the biblical scene of Jesus' revelation at Emmaus. Trethewey goes beyond the frame to excavate the multiple layers of the subject's identity, giving her a dimensionality that refuses to be confined by the limits of canvas or verse.

The poem begins by equating the maid with the domestic objects surrounding her: "She is the vessels on the table before her." These objects serve dual purposes. They signify her role and function within the household, but they also symbolize different aspects of her life and labor. The "copper pot tipped toward us" might signify her offering, her labor, tipped toward the viewers of both the painting and the poem. The "mortar and the pestle at rest in the mortar" signifies both rest and labor-items in a state of pause but ready for use, much like the subject herself.

What is most striking about the poem is how it characterizes her as both absent and present. She is simultaneously the object and the subject, embodying the marginalization of domestic workers and women of color while also standing as a testament to their resilience and complexity. Trethewey writes, "She's the stain on the wall the size of her shadow-the color of blood, the shape of a thumb." These lines are particularly evocative, linking her to both a stain and a shadow-objects often considered insignificant or undesirable. Yet, the stain is the "color of blood," which may signify life, struggle, or vitality. The "shape of a thumb" suggests an impression, a mark left behind.

The concluding lines add a spiritual dimension to her portrayal. She is framed against the biblical scene of Jesus at Emmaus, but rather than being secondary, she "echoes" Jesus. This parallel between "his white corona, her white cap" imbues her with a divine light, elevating her from her socially determined lowly status. She leans "into what she knows," perhaps an acknowledgment of her wisdom, her resilience, her unspoken understanding of the world she inhabits.

Trethewey's careful crafting of this complex portrayal serves as a critical counter-narrative. The poem captures the plight of this unnamed woman, wrestling her from the neglect of history and the anonymity of art, placing her at the center of her own rich narrative. She may be framed by domesticity and servitude, yet within that frame, she is rendered as deeply human. The light that "falls on half her face" illuminates her partially revealed identity, inviting us to consider the untold stories that make her whole. Trethewey's poem, then, becomes an act of reclamation and a testament to the layered intricacies of her subject's existence.