Facing it is one my favorite poems of all time. I love how emotionally intense it is, and how Yusef Komunyakaa beautifully expressed his intuition by using vivid imagery. At the beginning of the poem, Yusef uses the word "black" twice in order to emphasize his ethnicity clearly. The color is referred to both as his skin color and the color of the granite in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as a way to demonstrate a relationship between his ethnicity and the granite. This relationship continues as he mentions in the poem, "his face fades and hides inside the granite." The attributes of his face vanishes as the granite and him becomes one corresponding entity. His visit to the Memorial is clearly a very tragical experience. Although he promised himself that he will not cry portraying himself as a "stone" constantly but still fails to hold his tears. When I read this poem, over and over again, I only want to feel his pain, not to analyze why he described the place they way he did in his poem, or the way he described the granite which has those 58,022 names written down. I want to know why he relates his skin color to the granite, why doesn't he want to show the world his broken heart that is in pain, I want to know all of that through this poem. Yusef's description about the memorial is not just about how its built, it is about all those 58,022 people that he shares some form of emotional connection with. It shows how war has become a part of his entire life, and no matter how hard he tries to forget those horrific memories he is captivated by those 58,022 names, he is captivated by the black granite where his face fades away. He is haunted by those memories, yet he mourns for the dead, mourns by being strong as a stone, even though his heart is shattered by those 58,022 daggers.
Loved what you wrote, Sumaita.
ReplyDeleteI agree-- his poem was very intense and he did phenomenal in writing a vivid description on his experience. It’s hard to read this poem and not sympathize with the speaker because, like you said, it is tragic that he would never be able to erase those horrific memories regarding the war and what he had to go through and who he had lost. This poem is very powerful in conveying that message because of the figurative language that he presents.