Sunday, March 21, 2010

Facing It by Yusef Komunyakaa




Imagery can be helpful in tapping to the reader's senses so they can further understand the mood of the poem. Yusef Komunyakaa uses Imagery so the reader can understand the isolated and mournful tone of his poem "Facing It." "Facing It" is a poem about a black veteran who visits the Vietnam memorial and finds it hard to cope with the events he had to endure there. Yusef states in one quote "Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the name stays on the wall." Yusef uses this detail to explain that the speaker of the poem feels a special connection with the wall, and in isolation because of it. The people around the narrator can look at the names on the wall mourn for a few moments and then move on with their lives. Since the speaker experienced the war, he can not just move on, when he walks away from the wall the memories of the war will still stick with him forever. This statement expresses a mournful and isolated tone because the speaker feels that he can not relate to the other people who are visiting the wall, and the soldiers who died during the Vietnam war deserve more than a just one moment of mourning.

1 comment:

  1. This image certainly helps explain the imagery in the poem!

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