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Drew
Mrs. Boyd, 3B
MYP English 9
March 5, 2014
Yusef Komunyakka, a former Vietnam veteran who also served as an editor and reporter
during this time has gone on to write poetry. Two of the better known and more criticized pieces
are Facing It and Camouflaging the Chimera. From a close analysis of the poem and reading
many critiques the devices and techniques of Facing It and Camouflaging the Chimera can
be linked to the meaning and milieu of the works. Some fourteen years after serving as an
information specialistthat is, a military journalistfor the U.S. Army in the Vietnam War,
Yusef Komunyakaa found himself inspired to write poems based on his wartime experiences.
Circumstances seemed to conspire to first bring this verse to the poet's mind: he was renovating a
house in New Orleans in the summer of 1984 said Sara Constantakis in a criticism on Yusef
Komunyakkas poetry.
Facing It, one of Komunyakkas poems is about his experience itdescribes a Vietnam
War veterans painful experience of visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington,
D.C. From interviews and biographical detailsand his memories of those years haunt him
when he visits the memorial, causing him to question his own identity as a black, Vietnam War
veteran and the kind of survivor he has become." In Facing It, his poem about a Vietnam
veterans traumatic visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Yusef Komunyakaa draws
attention to how this inescapable relationship between memory and language acts to construct a
self-image. Though Komunyakka writes of his adventures and visit to the Vietnam memorial
and his grief and feelings said to be an inescapable relationship between memory and language
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acts to construct a self-image. When the speaker of the poem attempts to ward off undesired
memories, or at least the potential emotional impact those memories might have, he denies a part
of himself. This denial results in the splitting of his identity." "The speakers dilemma is
knowing with which self to sideknowing, literally, to whom he should turn. On the one hand,
he wants to remain stone against the potential effects of such memories. Yet that very self that
he desires becomes represented in his reflection in the black granite as a bird of prey, turning
what he wants against himself" this causes another split view of the poem where the author is
able to interpret it in their own way. Komunyakka then uses the stone metaphorically meaning
they are his hardened memories of the past.
Another of Komunkayyas well known and commonly criticized is Camouflaging the
Chimera. This poem is also about the Vietnam war, and his experience while fighting in the
war and becoming the chimera which refers to not just the camouflaged troops of the poem but
more broadly to the entire U.S. military presence in Southeast Asia through the Vietnam War.
However using this word gave the poem a dual connotation because the word has two different
definitions that are relevant in the context of the poem, The original meaning is founded in
Greek mythology, being the name of a female creature with the head of a lion, the body of a
goat, and the tail of a serpent; accordingly, as defined in Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate
Dictionary, the word can refer to any imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts, a
fitting description for the sprawling, politically ambiguous, internally conflicted American
military effort in Vietnam but it can also mean an illusion to an unrealizable dream which
could be talking of the Vietnamese perspectives of the American troops.
Yusef Komunyakka writes many poems about his experience in life. Not only are they
about his experiences serving in the Vietnam war, but he also has many other pieces on other
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personal expeiences. Slam, Dunk, & Hook is about playing basketball in the deep south in the
50s and 60s with a group of fellow African Americans. Many poets use their life experiences and
the milieu of the time as inspiration for their poems which can help the readers relate and enjoy
the poem as they learn about real life occurrences and the adventures of others while enjoying
literature.