Yusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa A poet of war, struggle, and remembrance…

Intro • Inspired by events in his life • Odes and Narratives while sending a message • Of war, poems are of disappointment • One of the greatly lauded poets of autographical detail

Early Life • Born April 29, 1947, in Bogalusa, Louisiana • Originally James Willie Brown Jr. • Raised during the beginning of the Civil Rights movement • Father was abusive • Musical influence

Military Life • In 1965, after he graduated from Bogalusa’s Central High School, he enlisted in the US Army for a tour of duty in Vietnam • Started writing in the military • Managing editor of the Southern Cross military newspaper. • Earned a Bronze Star

After Vietnam • Started writing poetry in 1973 • In1977, his first book of poems was published • In 1988, he published DienCaiDau • To this day, he has published many other books of poems • He is viewed as one of the best writers about the Vietnam War. • He has received many awards

Camouflaging The Chimera We tied branches to our helmets. We painted our faces & rifles with mud from a riverbank, blades of grass hung from the pockets of our tiger suits. We wove ourselves into the terrain, content to be a hummingbird's target. We hugged bamboo & leaned against a breeze off the river, slow-dragging with ghosts from Saigon to Bangkok, with women left in doorways reaching in from America. We aimed at dark-hearted songbirds. In our way station of shadows rock apes tried to blow our cover throwing stones at the sunset. Chameleons crawled our spines, changing from day to night: green to gold, gold to black. But we waited till the moon touched metal, till something almost broke inside us. VC struggled with the hillside, like black silk wrestling iron through grass. We weren't there. The river ran through our bones. Small animals took refuge against our bodies; we held our breath, ready to spring the L-shaped ambush, as a world revolved under each man's eyelid.

Style: Structure First Person POV One Stanza Flowing Passages Punctuating Passages Repetition

Style: Content/Themes Wrote of Jazz, Basketball, and War Themes cherished the beauty in positive aspects, Criticism in negative topics.

Style: Tone and Mood Tone is calm yet powerful; hides true theme in words Mood is seen in a different light http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komunyakaa/thanks.php

Style: Literary Devises Allusion Symbolism Personification Irony

Yellow Jackets When the plowblade struck An old stump hiding under The soil like a beggar's Rotten tooth, they swarmed up & Mister Jackson left the plow Wedged like a whaler's harpoon. The horse was midnight Against dusk, tethered to somebody's Pocketwatch. He shivered, but not The way women shook their heads Before mirrors at the five & dime--a deeper connection To the low field's evening star. He stood there, in tracechains, Lathered in froth, just Stopped by a great, goofy Calmness. He whinnied Once, & then the whole Beautiful, blue-black sky Fell on his back.

Literary Criticism • “dreamy intellectual”-New York Times • “Wordsworthian, worldly philosophic”- Bruce Weber

Literary Criticism • "His poems, many of which are built on fiercely autobiographical details—about his stint in Vietnam, about his childhood—deal with the stains that experience leaves on a life, and they are often achingly suggestive without resolution." –New York Times • “Komunyakaa crafts a ‘neon vernacular.’”-Robyn Selman

LiteraryCriticism • "Komunyakaa's Vietnam poems rank with the best on that subject. He focuses on the mental horrors of war—the anguish shared by the soldiers, those left at home to keep watch, and other observers, participants, objectors, who are all part of the 'psychological terrain.'“- Kirkland C .Jones

FacingIt • My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh. My clouded reflection eyes me like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn this way--the stone lets me go. I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

Conclusion • Influences

Yusef Komunyakaa