Analysis Of My Face By Yusef Komunyakaa

Facing it reflects the author's personal experience and dread from the Vietnam War. African American poet Yusef Komunyakaa was born and raised in Bogalusa, Louisiana, which at the author’s prime time was the center for the Ku Klux Klan and then later became a key destination for the civil rights movement, these situations later on heavily influenced Komunyakaa’s writing. In 1969, he joined the army and was stationed in Vietnam, there Komunyakaa served as a war correspondent. Witnessing the bloody battles also influenced his poetry. After coming back from the war, Komunyakaa began writing poetry and then attended the University of Colorado Springs to receive a BA. Furthermore, he then earned his MA and MFA in creative writing from Colorado State University and the University of California, Irvine, respectively. Komunyakaa is known to tackle difficult subjects and hits reality and history pretty hard. At the beginning of the poem, Komunyakaa is staring at his reflection in the granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. The granite wall elicits all sorts of blood-filled

“My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite” insinuates that the author’s face isn’t the only thing hiding behind the granite, casually replaying the history and mass casualties endured unintentionally. Komunyakaa struggles to keep his feelings under control, fueling the anger as to why he survived and others did not. His irritation is clearly obvious due to the harsh way he assembled the lines, for example, in one line he states “I’m stone. I’m flesh.”, both of these statements are juxtapositions. He can not be flesh and stone at the same time however analyzing past the words, it regards his composure and how vulnerable he feels in a “stone” presence. As opposed to these statements straight up being contradictory, it just further reveals Komunyakaa’s extremes of his