Yusef Komunyakaa
Yusef Komunyakaa, an African American poet who wrote “We Never Know”, reveals the elegance and true beauty of nature as well as the many hardships Americans had to go through to become unified as one. Even from the many negative events that has occurred, Americans have become stronger as we learn from our mistakes.
Born in 1947 at Bogalusa, Louisiana, “Yusef Komunyakaa was the eldest of five children, his relationship with his father, was at best a strained one” (“Komunyakaa”). He was named after his father, but later chose to take the name Komunyakaa “as a tribute to his grandfather, a stowaway from the West Indies” (Hoover). Growing up, the fundamental literary moments for Yusef included reading the Bible and volumes of encyclopedias given by his mother in his teen years. After reading James Baldwin’s Nobody Knows My Name, “Yusef Komunyakaa was inspired to write and began producing poetry while still in high school” (“Komunyakaa”). His success was after serving the military in Vietnam. He reported events in the war as well as edit the military newspaper. His poetry had a “direct impact on how he viewed the perspective of human existence” (Chow). Yusef took fourteen years to write about Vietnam. His poems created mesmerizing perspectives for the readers. After leaving the army in 1970 he went to the “University of Colorado where he rediscovered the love of writing poetry and decided to go to the University of Irvine where he developed his own voice” (Hoover) in the start of his poetry career.
Yusef Komunyakaa faced many influential events such as the “Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s when racial discrimination and segregation was at its peak” (“Yusef”). He grew up with a great deal of violence...
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...rels” (3) and interpretation of death is translating back to the United States and the past experiences he has gone through his early childhood with the violence and segregation of African Americans. This is including his tough relationship with his father when he was a child. This was exhibited when he pulls “…the crumbled picture” (8) of the enemy soldier’s loved one and instantly thought of his family. Regret that is caused by having bad relationships with family members becomes impossible to forget and hard to avoid.
Yusef Komunyakaa explains the hardships he went through using the beauty of poetry to captivate his readers. America has become stronger and more unified by learning from our past mistakes such as the racial segregation of African Americans. Having mistakes and failures is a part of life in order to become a better person than before.
Yusef Komanuyakaa's poem "Facing It" is a brutal examination of the affects that war leaves upon men. The reader can assume that Komanuyakaa drew upon his own experiences in Vietnam, thereby making the poem a personal statement. However, the poem is also a universal and real description of the pain that comes about for a soldier when remembering the horror of war. He creates the poem's persona by using flashbacks to the war, thereby informing the reader as to why the speaker is behaving and feeling the way he is. The thirty-one lines that make up "Facing It" journey back and forth between present and past to tell the story of one man's life.
James Baldwin had a talent of being able to tell a personal story and relate it to world events. His analysis is a rare capability that one can only acquire over an extensive lifetime. James Baldwin not only has that ability, but also the ability to write as if he is conversing with the reader. One of his most famous essays, “Notes of a Native Son,” is about his father’s death. It includes the events that happened prior to and following his father’s death. Throughout this essay, he brings his audience into the time in which he wrote and explains what is going on by portraying the senses and emotions of not only himself, but as well as the people involved. This essay has a very personal feeling mixed with public views. Baldwin is able to take one small event or idea and shows its place within the “bigger picture.” Not only does he illustrate public experiences, but he will also give his own personal opinion about those events. Throughout “Notes of a Native Son” Baldwin uses the binary of life versus death to expand on the private versus public binary that he also creates. These two binaries show up several times together showing how much they relate to each other.
Wiesel and his father were harshly testing their bond as a family during the progression of their stay. It is remarkable how such appalling conditions can bring people together in ways unimaginable. Before Wiesel came, he never did much regarding his father. While they were at the camp, Wiesel couldn’t stand being without his father. Wiesel is surprised to see how the camp changed his father. He recalls on how one of the first nights at the camp, he saw his father cry for the first time. Wiesel’s relationship with his father has been so impactful on
Baldwin's mind seems to be saturated with anger towards his father; there is a cluster of gloomy and heartbreaking memories of his father in his mind. Baldwin confesses that "I could see him, sitting at the window, locked up in his terrors; hating and fearing every living soul including his children who had betrayed him" (223). Baldwin's father felt let down by his children, who wanted to be a part of that white world, which had once rejected him. Baldwin had no hope in his relationship with his father. He barely recalls the pleasurable time he spent with his father and points out, "I had forgotten, in the rage of my growing up, how proud my father had been of me when I was little" (234). The cloud of anger in Baldwin's mind scarcely lets him accept the fact that his father was not always the cold and distant person that he perceived him to be. It is as if Baldwin has for...
Through an intimate maternal bond, Michaels mother experiences the consequences of Michaels decisions, weakening her to a debilitating state of grief. “Once he belonged to me”; “He was ours,” the repetition of these inclusive statements indicates her fulfilment from protecting her son and inability to find value in life without him. Through the cyclical narrative structure, it is evident that the loss and grief felt by the mother is continual and indeterminable. Dawson reveals death can bring out weakness and anger in self and with others. The use of words with negative connotations towards the end of the story, “Lonely,” “cold,” “dead,” enforce the mother’s grief and regressing nature. Thus, people who find contentment through others, cannot find fulfilment without the presence of that individual.
After this event, the reader can really see that deep down, the protagonist loves and cares for his father. As he hears his father enter the house babbling gibberish, he begins getting worried.
Before the civil rights movement gained momentum around 1955, the African-American community was looked upon by many as a group of second-class citizens who were undeserving of rights enjoyed by white Americans. This started to change when men like Malcolm Little (Malcolm X) stood up for the cause and fought back against segregation. He was a man from humble beginnings and who dealt with racism and hatred from a young age, all of which shaped his activism. Malcolm, after his death, was recognized as one of the most important people of the 20th century by TIME Magazine. He watched from a young age as white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) terrorized African-Americans by lynching and torturing them because of their skin color (“Malcolm X”). This among many other racists acts witnessed by Malcolm shaped his philosophical and political views. Malcolm was a controversial figure because he initially supported a violent revolution against whites, but he had many supporters in the African-American community. One of them was Manning Marable, who wrote a biography about Malcolm, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, in 2011. This book brings Malcolm’s story to life through research of his experiences and interviews with his close family and friends. Michiko Kakutani, a New York Times book critic, emphasizes in her review that though the biography is not as intense in details and philosophical views as is Malcolm X’s own autobiography, Marable “manages to situate Malcolm X within the context of 20th-century racial politics in America without losing focus on his...
Poems are forms of communication that give an applicable view of the past, present and future events. Reading the poem titled “America”, written by Richard Blanco brought me memories from my childhood in my parent’s house and also what is happening now in my house as a parent. The poem explains how one person doesn’t have all the knowledge about something. It also, describes the daily life struggles I experienced during my childhood, when my parent 's and I moved from our hometown to live in another town becuase of their work and it brings to light the conflict of cultures I and my children are going through since we moved to United State of America .
Poems are expression of the human soul, and even though, is not everyone’s cup of tea when the individual finds that special poem it moves their soul one with the poet. There are many poets in the world, but the one that grab my attention the most was no other than Langston Hughes. It would be impossible for me to cover all the poems he wrote, but the one that grab my attention the most is called “Let America Be America Again.” It first appeared in “1938 pamphlet by Hughes entitled A New Song. Which was published by a socialist organization named the International Worker Order” (MLM) and later change back to its original name. I have never felt such an energy coming out of a poem like this one which is the reason that I instantly felt in love with it.
...the death struggle in his mind - it is very explicit in books such as A Farewell to Arms and Death in the Afternoon, which were based on his own experience.
Where Uhtred loses his father who “did not much like children.” (Cornwell 8), Liesel constantly faces abandonment, one being by her mother. Liesel’s mother abandons Liesel for her safety, as her mother is a communist, and Liesel feels “A gang of tears trudged from her eyes and she held on and refused to go inside.” (Zusak p. 28) However, before her mother was compelled to leave for her daughter’s own safety, Liesel’s first trauma is revealed: her brother’s death, which is where anxiety begins to form. At her brother’s funeral, Liesel steals her first book, The Gravediggers Handbook. Zusack asserts that “it didn’t really matter what the book was about. It was what it meant that was more important” (Ibid 45). This statement is true, Liesel does not steal this book merely because of its content or narrative, but instead in an attempt to fill some of the void which was left by her brother. Uhtred, however, loses his mentor and father figure, Earl Ragnar. Both protagonists can relate feeling a sense of abandonment at very early stages of their lives, where “If the child has been directly exposed to war-related trauma, has lost a caregiving figure… therapy may provide a corrective emotional experience for the child and demonstrate that trust and closeness do not inevitably lead to pain.” (Leavitt and Fox 62). These traumatic events can lead to psychological trauma most likely being PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress
"Facing It," by Yusef Komunyakaa talks about a war which most, if not all Americans are familiar with. The ever so controversial Vietnam Conflict, also known as the Vietnam War. This poem was very well written, and I respect all that was said in the context of the poem. "Facing It," discusses his visit to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C., and his emotions that he experienced while he was at the memorial. I can not imagine what the feelings would be like to see one of my friend's name etched in this wall, although Tomas Van Putten can. I had a personal phone interview with him on October 30th, 2002.
...is interactions with his wife are filled with tension and he is saddened when he reflects upon the men lost during war and the death of his brother.
He is prohibited anyone to write about love, poem or anything who described love because is racist still out there. In addition, there is no point of confessing love where there is lot hatred, animosity, confusion, hypocrite, .and they need to fix what is broken. Where the point of is confess, preach or write about love if there is many hatred incident towards all the race, so you think oh I am the only one. Racial issues need to be addressed more often in the United State. In the last five, lines the author reassures and remind the African –American their root where they from whom their ancestors were, from and how they had it back then and how is that the ancestors were free from slavering that same the author is predicting the positive mindset and