Where the streets and buildings and monuments are named in honor of the Confederacy, where that old flag still hangs, I return to Mississippi, the state that made me a crime : mulatto, half-breed: originally from my homeland, in this place they will bury me (23-34). "Trethewey identifies with the feeling of isolation of black soldiers during the war as she was banished to her hometown due to being from a mixed race family. Growing up she suffered racism from both whites and blacks and this poem tells her allows him to express the exile he felt. He compares his exile to the soldiers who had been slaves. Another of Trethwey's themes is based on his mother, who is “coloured” as they say on his birth certificate, who died at a young age. "When Mrs. Trethewey was 19 and in college, her mother was killed by her second husband, an abusive man from whom she had divorced, and the struggle of trying to jog her mother's memory is one of Mrs. Trethewey's other major themes. Trethewey. .” (McGrath, page 3). When this tragic death occurred, Trethewey knew she should become a poet and began to write. “”It took me almost 20 years to find the right language, to write poetry