Question

Read "The Southern Refugee” and "South.”

How do these poems address the importance of memory differently?

Horton’s poem emphasizes sadness that comes from memory, while Trethewey’s poem emphasizes that sadness is necessary.
Horton’s poem explores a positive outlook on memory, while Trethewey’s poem explores a more negative perspective.
Horton’s poem suggests that memory should be glorified, while Trethewey’s poem suggests that it teaches life lessons.
Horton’s poem expresses that memory has no worth in the end, while Trethewey’s poem expresses its effects on people.

Answer 1

The best choice is the first: Horton’s poem emphasizes sadness that comes from memory, while Trethewey’s poem emphasizes that sadness is necessary.

Why:
- Horton’s voice is mournful and nostalgic; memory in his poem is primarily a source of pain and longing for what’s lost. The tone and images center on grief and the burden of remembering where one has been and what was taken.
- Trethewey’s poem treats memory as an imperative and a moral function: remembering is painful but necessary for truth, identity, and reckoning. Her sadness is not merely lamentation but a required step toward understanding, confronting history, and preserving what might otherwise be erased.

So Horton foregrounds the sorrow memory produces; Trethewey insists that that sorrow must be borne because it matters.