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His many poetry collections include Not Go Away is My Name (2020), The Dangerous Shirt (2009), The Theater of Night (2006), Five Indiscretions (1985), and Whispering to Fool the Wind (1982), which was selected by Donald Justice for the 1981 Walt Whitman Award.
- Facing It
Hear Yusef Komunyakaa read and reflect on the history of...
- The Poetry of the Vietnam War
In remembrance of American involvement in Vietnam, the...
- Facing It
Hear Yusef Komunyakaa read and reflect on the history of war, from the Roman era to Vietnam.
In remembrance of American involvement in Vietnam, the Poetry Foundation has assembled a selection of poems from our archives that address the conflict and its aftermath. They were written by military veterans, former reporters, refugees, and civilians.
A poem that describes the author's visit to the Vietnam Wall memorial in Washington, D.C. and his emotional response to the names of the fallen soldiers. The poem uses imagery, metaphors and personal reflections to convey the impact of the wall on the author and the nation.
The poem describes the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington D.C. It summarizes the wall as a black marble structure engraved with the names of soldiers who died in the Vietnam War, ordered by their date of death rather than alphabetically.
25 maj 2014 · Here is a video in which Michael Lythgoe reads Facing It for the Favorite Poem Project. Lythgoe is a veteran who served in Vietnam with a USAF tactical team in 1965…and again in Saigon in 1971. Lythgoe has said that he was not able to face the “Memorial Wall” in Washington, D. C. for many years.
Komunyakaa was inspired to write the poem following a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial some 14 years after his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War. The poem deals with the speaker's struggle to confront traumatic wartime memories while looking at his reflection in the memorial's shiny surface and staring at the names of fallen soldiers.
