Yusef Komunyakaa Is An Alum Of Colorado State University

Yusef Komunyakaa, a poet, was born in in Bogalusa, Louisiana on April 29, 1947, and he began writing poetry in 1973. He has wonderfully written multiple intense poetry collections with deep meanings that express his emotions and illustrates his surroundings. In his poetry, he creates complex and vivid images of what life was like for him. Yusef Komunyakaa has written his poetry based on real life events, repetition, and figurative language.

“Facing it” by Yusef Komunyakaa and “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen, are two powerful poems with the graphical life like images on the reality of war. It is apparent that the authors was a soldier who experienced some of the most gruesome images of World War I. In “Ducle et Decorum Est” Owen tells us about a personal experience in which he survived a chemical warfare attack. Although he survives, some of his fellow troops do not. As in “Facing It” Komunyakaa is also a soldier who has survived a war. Komunyakaa response to his war experience is deeply shaped by his visit to Lin’s memorial. Inspired by the monument, Komunyakaa confronts his conflicted feelings about Vietnam, its legacy, and even more broadly, the part race plays in

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

Cruel and terrible events forever leave a mark on our memory. Especially, when these events are directly related to person, the memory reproduces every second of what happened. Unfortunately, humanity fully cognized the term of "war". "Facing it" by Yusef Komunyakaa reveals another several sides of the war. Poem tells the reader about which consequences, the war left and how changed people's lives. The hero identifies itself with the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, mourns all those killed and who did not return. That is why the poem is dramatic. War has become a part of the hero's life, even after the ending.

In his poem, “Facing It”, Yusef Komunyakaa describes his ambivalent emotions towards the Vietnam War of which he was a veteran. Reflecting on his experiences, Yusef expresses his conflicting feelings about the Vietnam War and his feelings about how racism has played a part in America’s history. By using visual imagery and metaphoric language throughout the poem, Yusef is able to reflect the sad and confused emotions he felt while visiting the Vietnam memorial.

The poem “Thanks,” by Yusef Komunyakaa, in the literal sense, is a poem poised in the midst of a “deadly game,” where the narrator keeps barely escaping death in multiple occurances. Through the usage of extended metaphor, literary devices, juxtaposition and Komunyakaa’s own experiences of the Vietnam War, the poem accomplishes a solemn tone for the piece as a whole. This solemn tone establishes an abusive relationship created in the poem between the two children, America and Vietnam, and the Mother of All, Earth.

Robert Pinsky and June Jordan are both successful and well-known poets. Many people tend to find similarities between Pinsky’s “Shirt” and Jordan’s “It’s Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean;” in reality, however, these poems are significantly different from one another. Both poems highlight the speakers’ dissatisfaction, but Jordan’s poem is more successful and powerful than Pinsky’s because of its use of tone, poetic devices, and relatable theme.

David Baker was born in Bangor, Maine in 1954. Throughout his career, he has won multiple awards and fellowships. He was the editor of the Kenyon Review and has been a visiting professor at multiple colleges. Baker is a faculty member in the M.F.A (master of fine arts) program for writers at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. After reading the poem, one might wonder whether or not the poet has experienced such a heart-rending experience himself.

During times of war, it is inevitable for loss to be experienced by all. In the poems “The Black Rat” and “The Photograph” written by Iris Clayton and Peter Kocan respectively, the idea of loss is explored through an omniscient narrator recalling a soldier’s involvement in warfare. While Clayton writes of a soldier’s abrupt loss of hope and how this experience negatively affects his life, Kocan explores how the loss of a loved one affects a family sixty years later. While both poems incorporate similar techniques in imagery and narration, the time setting for each poem is different as “The Black Rat” is set in Tobruk, Libya during World War 2 and “The Photograph” is set during World War 1.

In the profile article “Jimmy Santiago Baca: Poetry as Lifesaver” author Rob Baker, who also is a creative writing and English teacher proves to not only the readers but also the National Council of Teachers of English the significance of poetry. The authors main point is that poetry saved Jimmy Santiago Baca’s life, he shows us how by explaining the emotions when Baca began to read poetry; he then went on to write poetry and even publish his own works while still in prison, after Baca’s release, he became a dedicated teacher who also works with gang members and teaches workshops.

The ending lines “A loneliness lingers like a silver needle under my skin, as I try to feel how it is to scream for help through a horn” conveys that Komunyakaa's concluded

The collection of poems “Theater”, “Water”, and “Safe House” by Solmaz Sharif shows the varied viewpoints of how war affects the speakers and how death is all too common in the midst of warfare. The author uses a spectrum of literary techniques to enhance the experience of the reader, so we can fully grasp the severity of each speaker’s plight. All of Sharif’s poems differ in form with the use of white space and indentations in “Theater”, colons in “Water”, and a style of abecedarian using the letter S in “Safe House”. While her diverse use of forms generate different emotions from the reader, they share the same notion of how violence is problematic. Each poem has a unique outlook to the sight of war: “Theater” being in the position of a victim and an assailant of war, “Water” explaining a war mission and fatalities in terse terms, and “Safe House” as an observer of an activist against war. Sharif’s strategy to exemplify the effects of how war affects the victim and the civilian is particularly critical because mass media tends to hide the collateral damage of war and only illustrates why we should attack the “enemy”. Another approach the author uses to critique the speakers central conflicts is by arranging words from the US Department of Defense 's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, to concur with the message of the several ways war influences the lives of those who are unwillingly encompassed by it. Sharif uses poetry as an outlet to show the underlying tone

Tom Lux’s “The People of the Other Village” was written shortly after the first Iraq war and gained popularity after the 9/11 attacks.   The poem’s voice comes from an indifferent narrator whose unnamed village is at war with the people of an “other” unnamed village.  The exact reason that started this war is unclear; however, as the war escalates, the battle tactics evolve and are depicted in an alternating line structure that mimics the back and forth nature of reciprocal violence.  Ultimately, the author presents a poem that comments on human nature without committing to a judgment of that nature through subject matter, structure, and narrative voice.

The position of US Poet Laureate is an exceptionally prestigious and challenging position to achieve, as any aspiring poet within the country is eligible. To quote the Library of Congress, the poet laureate “serves as the official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans” (“About the Position”), which means that their duty is to increase the widespread national appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry, specifically those imbued with American themes. These duties as laureate are perfectly suited for Yusef Komunyakaa, who embodies all of the necessary qualities. Through jazz-infused poetry and personal experiences, Komunyakaa truly captures within his poetry what it means to be an American, and he continues to leave an impact on the world of literature both

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.