and extramarital relationships. However, his
mother introduced him to books at an early age
by purchasing a set of encyclopedias. During his
teenage years, Komunyakaa was also influenced
to write by JAMES BALDWIN’s Nobody Knows My
Name. During the late 1960s Komunyakaa served
in the military in the Vietnam War, where he ed-
ited a military newspaper and won a bronze star.
Returning home, he enrolled at the University of
Colorado, where he earned his bachelor’s degree
and began writing poetry. Komunyakaa contin-
ued with graduate work at both the University of
Colorado, where he earned an M.A. degree, and
the University of California at Irvine, where he
earned an M.F.A. degree. He has taught creative
writing for a number of universities, including
Princeton University, where he served as professor
of humanities and creative writing and was elected
chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and
the University of New Orleans, where he met and
married Australian writer Mandy Sayer.
A prolific poet, writer, and editor, Komun-
yakaa has produced a large and impressive body of
work, beginning with his first collection of poetry,
Dedications and Other Dark Horses (1977), Lost in
the Bonewheel Factory (1979), Copacetic (1984), I
Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), Toys in
a Field (1986), Dien Cai Dau (1988), and Febru-
ary in Sydney (1989). During the 1990s, he pub-
lished Magic City (1992), Neon Vernacular: New
and Selected Poems (1993), and Thieves of Para-
dise (1998) and edited the Jazz Poetry Anthology
with Sascha Feinstein (1991). He also wrote Blue
Notes: Essays, Interview and Commentaries (1995).
His most recent works include Talking Dirty to the
Gods: Poems (2000), Pleasure Dome: New and Se-
lected Poems (2001), and Taboo (2004).
Even though Komunyakaa’s poetic style has
been characterized as “firmly rooted in the stylistic
innovations of early-twentieth century American
modernists,” his reflection that the black experi-
ence should not “particularize the presentation of
art” (Komunyakaa 2000, vii) appears in his poetry.
Komunyakaa’s early poems deal with violence, es-
pecially as informed by his experiences in Viet-
nam and the pain of going home after the war.
The “it” in “Facing It” refers to the Vietnam Veter-
ans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Komunyakaa’s
speaker declares:I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light to make a
difference.
I go down the 58,022 names, half expecting
to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.Another speaker declares:The monsoon uncovers troubled
seasons we tried to forget.
Dead men slip through bad weather,
stamping their muddy boots to wake us
their curses coming easier. (“Monsoon
Season”)Komunyakaa’s use of childhood memories
and his experiences in Vietnam connect abstract
expressions and images into an improvisational,
jazzlike method of pulling readers into the po-
etry, as is clearly seen in “Tu Do Street”;Music divides the evening.
I close my eyes & can see
men drawing lines in the dust.
American pushes through the membrane
of mist & smoke, & I am a small boy
again in Bogalusa. White Only
signs and Hank now.Like fellow Louisianan poet KALAMU YA SALAAM,
Komunyakaa uses both BLUES and jazz as a back-
drop and underpinning for many of his poems.
Komunyakaa’s awards for poetry include the
Creative Writing Fellowship from the National En-
dowment for the Arts in 1981 and 1987. He won
the San Francisco Poetry Center Award in 1986. In
1994 Komunyakaa was awarded the Pulitzer Prize
for Neon Vernacular, a collection of poems fromKomunyakaa, Yusef 307