Analysis Of Facing It By Yusef Komunyakaa

“Facing It” by the American black poet Yusef Komunyakaa of Shreveport is written with the use of visual images. Yusef Komunyakaa writes about one of his many trips to the Vietnam's Veteran's Memorial in Washington DC. This Memorial is a long polished slab of black reflectant granite with the names of all the US soldiers who lost their lives in Vietnam. Yusef says “my black face fades, hiding inside the black granite”. Here Yusef uses his reflection in the wall to bring the reader back to the war and how he feels standing at the wall now. He makes his feeling ambiguous and give the reader the opportuntity to decide what he is feeling through his use of viual images.

He struggles to internalize his emotions, telling himself he is stone, like the granite memorial, a strong and steady reminder of the past, but he fails as he realizes the difference between him and the memorial: he is a living human being. He shares the darkness, the blackness, with the granite memorial, yet he can feel the full impact of this connection whereas a granite memorial cannot itself feel the pain that it directly represents. The overall moral of the poems is fairly up front for the reader. It is that war is not how stories make it sound, it is not honorable and fun and glorious, it is gruesome, deadly, and changes the lives of many young men and women who still had a lot of life and innocence left in front of them, and now all they will have are the memories of death and their friends dying in front of them. As Komuyakaa face becomes clear it now serves as a direct reminder of the emotional impact of his surroundings upon him, through mirroring his own face and also by simultaneously illuminating his surroundings and his silhouetted existence within these surroundings, reminding him that he stands within the Vietnam Memorial. This effect is described within the (lines 8-13) His constant turning and moving from angle to angle also suggests emotion as he cannot view the

In this poem there is a lot of figurative language. One of the biggest types of figurative language used in this poem is irony. The irony in this poem is how the mother wouldn't let her child go to march because she feared her child would get hurt. Instead she sent her child to church because she believed it was a safe and sacred place but ironically the church ended up being bombed. Another piece of figurative language that is very effective in this poem is imagery. The way the poem is written helps me create images in my head for example, "She raced through the streets of Birmingham." I can imagine her running around desperately, looking for her child. The metaphors and hyperboles in this poem also help with the imagery, for example, "...night dark hair," and "…rose-petal sweet." These metaphors make me think of the girls smoothly combed black hair and her fresh and beautiful rosy smell. A hyperbole that had a huge effect on the tone was, "But that smile was the last smile to ever come upon her face." This hyperbole really helps me understand the effect of a tragic moment like this and how it can completely ruin

In the poems of “Dulce et Decorum Est” and “Facing It” written by Wilfred Owen and Yusef Komunyakaa respectively, two entirely different yet similar stories of war are told. “Dulce et Decorum Est” is told through the perspective of our narrator as he’s directly in the middle of a war and of the horrors he sees. From the unforgiving terrain to the description of the already beaten down soldiers, and quickly followed up with a gas attack, it is not a pretty picture. The poem tells of the soldiers scrambling to put their helmets on to shield them from the gas, but not all of them make it. One soldier helplessly fumbles with his helmet and does not manage to put it on in time. The images of his friend choking and drowning are all too real for

"Facing it" by Yusef Komunyakaa reveals to us other sides of the war, using vivid images and metaphors. The poem tells the story about the violent war, which is difficult test for a person. Unusual rhythm gives the poem its beauty and unforgettable character. The brevity of some of lines attached the poem dramatic hue. Hero, who identifies himself with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, is allowing us to understand the atmosphere of the event and the sorrow of people affected by war. Yusef Komunyakaa reminds to the reader about the main things, such as courage, bravery and valor.

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

The poem describes the life of a man during the Vietnam War, a conflict involving the United States and local Vietnamese who supported a communist regime, and how unexplainable sporadic events saved his life. He gives thanks to an unknown force that saves his life multiple times throughout his tour in Vietnam because the instances are what some people consider luck and others and act of a higher being or deity. Throughout the poem he expresses his gratitude towards the entity that watches over him but later he questions the existence of a god because why would one allow there to be a war in the first place and then send

Once I was able to associate these words to emotions and issues present in everyday life, the poem started to make me feel sad. I began thinking about all of the emotions and feelings that everyone hides as they go about life. For example, how the waitress I see once a week may have an eating disorder, or how the singer I look up to just lost her son, or the businessman who got laid off today. Everyone has their own personal battle that they carry everywhere, at any given moment. This explains why the setting is so plain, since the internal struggles people face affect them even at a bus stop. While each person waits, the waitress may be thinking about how much skinnier the person next to her is. The singer could be remembering when she held her baby. And the business man could be planning how to break the news to his wife. No matter how small, everyone experiences a type of trauma or bad experience, and this poem seemed to show what happens when these emotions become bottled up. No one can help each other because they are so stuck within their own issues. The difficulty helping others reminded me of the idea of having to take care of yourself before being able to take care of others.

“Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, are 2 great poems written in the perspective of soldiers who experienced disturbance of war. In “Dulce et Decorum Est” Owen talks about his experience in World War 1, taking the reader inside the actual event and giving them the insight on his feelings watching his fellow troops die. In “Facing it”, Komunyakaa also discusses his feeling towards his fellow troops who didn’t survive the attack but he also sheds light on his racial identity. Komunyakaa talks more of his feeling about the Vietnam War while visiting a memorial as oppose to describing the actual event. In "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa and Wilfred Owen 's “Dulce et Decorum Est," the poets use various literary techniques to express their traumatic experiences of war. Without these literary devices, the poems would not be as powerful and effective in expressing how war mentally damaged them.

Two authors, Yusef Komunyakaa and Stephen Crane, created deep and moving stories about what the feelings are to be in a American war. Even though both stories are very different they both can also be related very easily. Yusef Komunyakaa wrote a poem called ‘Camouflaging the Chimera’ while Stephen Crane wrote a novel excerpt called ‘The Red Badge of Courage.’ One of the major differences are that TRBOC takes place in the American Civil war even though he was born 6 years after. While CTC takes place in the vietnam war. Going over the writing style, theme, and context figuring out the differences and similarities.

The memories and feelings that the memorial brings forth from the veteran are the driving force to the tone of the poem. The poems is heavy and heartbreaking. It clearly shows that the visit to the memorial has an enormous impact on the author. The author describes several different visions he has while at the memorial. The visions that he has are as real to him as if they were physically present. The author makes it easy to see and feel things through his eyes. The words used to describe his thoughts and feeling evoke emotions of sadness and at times, even despair.

Yusef Komunyakaa, born in 1947, wrote both February in Sydney and Facing it. These poems were written as a way of “talking around an idea or question,” this idea/ question being that of growing up during the civil rights movement. His poetical technique makes his opinions stand out, being affluencial because although poems contain less words they often have a more powerful appeal. Komunyakaa was especially influenced by jazz and the time that he served in the Vietnam War. He creates his poem February In Sydney to mimic that freedom that he felt through jazz similar to that of meditation. In Facing it he bases the poem on flashbacks of the war while visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

In this poem, we see the tone light and free, also much imagery. We see this immediately with the first line saying, the “afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight” (1). We immediately get a sense of a beautiful day, maybe even fall with the trees descriptions in the following line, “trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves” (2). Lowell shows such beautiful imagery throughout her poem especially in her first two stanzas, that when we read that they are in the middle of war in the third stanza, that it is slightly shocking. That there are “two little boys, lying flat on their faces” (7) and that they are, “carefully gathering red berries” (8). Here Lowell shows that it is still a beautiful day but the darker reality is that they are currently in a war. Then we start to see the poem more in a melancholy light. That these two little boys are picking berries to save for later, instead of enjoying it right now. However one day the boys wish that “there will be no more war” (10), and that then, they could in fact enjoy their berries, their afternoon and “turn it in my fingers”. In this poem, we clearly see the different tones throughout. Lowell shows us the light tone, then a more melancholy tone and then finally a hopeful tone.

The writer compares his life to water on Rouge River that is heading towards dead end with unknown future. “And my reflection is dominated by water Coming to impasse, the teeter-totter Of decision” from the poem shows the seriousness and thought provoking idea i.e. contemplation probably related to meaning of life and what lies ahead. Moreover, “And plunging in we find a serene cavernous strength, And pressed to run its darkness at full length, We find our all”, reflects tone of believing in ourselves and the best we have in us. This means no matter the situation we can bring the best of us that is life. Tone of the poem helps writer to make the poem more appealing to the readers. It aids the poet to express his feeling more effectively and

causes the poem to flow, and thus lightens up the dark and serious issue of war. The lines "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place." are easy to read; however, their meaning is extremely