What details in the poem support this interpretation? At this point you might want to share more information about the poet, Yusef Komunyakaa. Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter. Teach This Poem.
Follow Us. Find Poets. Poetry Near You. Jobs for Poets. Read Stanza. Privacy Policy. Press Center. First Book Award. James Laughlin Award. Ambroggio Prize. She was crying. They prodded her up the stairs. Oh, yeah, she still had some fight in her, but the governor's power was absolute.
He said, There's a tyranny of language in my fluted bones. There's a poetry on every page of the good book. There's God's work to be done in a forsaken land. There's a whole tribe in this one, but I'll break them before they're in the womb, before they're conceived, before they're even thought of. Come, up here, don't be afraid, up here to the governor's quarters, up here where laws are made. You're special. You're not like the others. I'll thoroughly break you, head to feet, but sister I'll break you most dearly with sweet words.
Academy of American Poets Educator Newsletter. Teach This Poem. Follow Us. Find Poets. Poetry Near You. Jobs for Poets. Read Stanza. Privacy Policy. Press Center. First Book Award. James Laughlin Award. Ambroggio Prize. Andrew has a keen interest in all aspects of poetry and writes extensively on the subject.
His poems are published online and in print. The black wall of the memorial evokes all kinds of war-torn images from the violent past which are full of agony and pain. The poem explores just what effect these have on a young black soldier, struggling to cope in the here and now.
Born in in Louisiana, Yusef Komunyakaa spent time as a war correspondent in Vietnam, witnessing and reporting on the bloody battles for supremacy in the mid s. When he returned to the USA he began writing poetry whilst studying at the University of Colorado and went on to publish in magazines, eventually bringing out a book in , Dien Cai Dau , which is Vietnamese for crazy. Included in the book was the poem Facing It. Komunyakaa's poems cover many subjects, from war to folklore, from jazz to racial issues.
Hard reality and personal history are often explored. Facing It doesn't take an objective view of the Vietnam conflict but concentrates on a short episode in the life of an ex soldier who was once fully immersed in the harshest of environments.
Facing It is a free verse poem of 31 lines in total, a single stanza without a rhyme scheme or regular meter metre in British English.
It is very much a personal approach, written in first person, which tells the reader that this is one individual facing whatever it is that might follow. This individual is also black. In the first two lines an image is made, that of a black person's reflection fading into black granite. The speaker could well be talking to himself, whispering perhaps, as he takes a look into the black stone.
It's granite, one of the toughest, most durable rocks there is. But note the verb hiding which hints at shyness and doubt, or wanting to avoid being seen. Maybe this person doesn't want to see himself?
Already the face is fading, a good thing for all concerned? The third and fourth lines deepen the sense of personal. The idea that this black man told himself before he came to this place that he would not cry or shed a tear. He's a bit emotional. He's looking at himself again, line six tells the reader. He's looking back - the simile introduces a bird of prey, and a fixed, staring pose - the more he looks the darker his profile at an angle against the morning light.
And the poem is gaining momentum in its study of contrast and conflict. What it is to be a vulnerable human. What it is to be tough and insensitive. Lines seven and eight have enjambment, the lines not punctuated, bringing movement and some hesitation as the speaker uses the light to try and understand just what is happening to him inside and out.
The stone lets him go, as if it once imprisoned him, like the past perhaps? He turns the other way and the opposite occurs, the stone traps him again.
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