Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Incredibly Moving
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Yusef Komunyakaa, does not disappoint.This riveting and emotional collection of poems dealing with the horror and destruction of war is incredibly moving.The images Mr. Komunyakaa describes plunge the reader into the midst of the conflict.Backpedaling in terror, I found myself wanting to set this book aside, but I could not.Like a soldier, I had to see the battle to its fateful conclusion.

I especially liked the ending segment, Autobiography Of My Alter Ego.This section read very much like a soldier's diary, organizing the writer's reflections of his home life with the bloody stench of war.Anyone who has ever gone into battle will easily envision himself or herself in this collection.The tragic destruction of human life painstakingly rendered in Warhorses will remain in the reader's mind long after the final page has been turned.

Incredible Book from Komunyakaa
This is the most powerful book of poems I've read from an American poet this year. Alive, painful, beautiful. Komunyakaa is a master. ... Read more

Product Description
An award-winning poet's testimony of the war in Vietnam.Amazon.com Review
In addition to 12 moving new poems, Neon Vernacular(winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry) samples broadly fromYusef Komunyakaa's acclaimed collections Dien Cai Dau,Copacetic, and I Apologize for the Eyes in MyHead. Poems from Komunyakaa's earlier books show that while hisstyle has evolved from a soul-bare blues to an intellectuallysyncopated jazz, his core obsessions remain. His poems provide grittytestimony of the Vietnam War, a history of community and loneliness inAfrican America, and, elusively, a complex document of humanconsciousness. Like his predecessor in this uncertain territory,Robert Hayden--who asked, "What did I know, what did I know/ oflove's austere and lonely offices"--Komunyakaa's speakers areconstantly being attacked by doubt, as in "Black String ofDays:"

Tonight I feel the stars are out
to use me for target practice.
I don't know why they zero in like old
business, each a moment of blood
unraveling forgotten names...
On the black string of days
there's an unlucky number
undeniably ours.

Although his poems of the Vietnam War belong to the battle-wearytradition of Siegfried Sassoon, Louis Simpson, and Bruce Weigl, theygain an added complexity from the tense absence of battle. The idea ofbeing a soldier in an unpopular war, as Komunyakaa was, attains insuch poems as "Monsoon Season" and "Water Buffalo"a metaphysical air. In these poems, ponchos feel like body bags andone speaker realizes, "I'm nothing but a target," but thebullet never comes. As in his poems about growing up in Bogalusa,Louisiana, Komunyakaa's voices have prepared themselves for pain, andthey celebrate the confusion of the lifetime before it strikes, or theclarity of the moment just after. This is a rich collection from oneof our most rewarding poets. --Edward Skoog ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

"Like a man drunk on the rage / Of being alive"
Some people read Komunyakaa because he's a great Vietnam war poet.Some read him because he's a truly great Black poet.And they're right, too.And there's that unmistakable southern voice.And the omnipresent realization that nothing on this earth is ordinary and unworthy of praise, and brutal honesty is the poet's greatest strength.But the reason everyone should read Komunyakaa is that he is one of the greatest, clearest voices of our age.Here is the confirmation of your own humanity that every reader seeks.

Highly Recommended!!!
This is a tremendous collection of Komunyakaa's life work, and is highly recommended for anyone who loves poetry and is looking for a new author to light up your imagination. I had to laugh at the reviewer from Minneapolis; he instead recommends Anthony Hecht, John Hollander and Albert Goldbarth -- the three most boring poets in the English language! If you want to be bored out of your skull, take this guy's recommendations. If you want to see how amazing contemporary poetry can be, I can't recommend this book highly enough.

LANGUAGE LIT UP: SOUL-TO-SOUL COMMUNICATION
After I saw the movie "Il Postino" ("The Postman"), I was so moved and intrigued I had to go check out the poetry of Pablo Neruda. And after I heard Yusef Komunyakaa read from his own work, I immediately had to buy this collection of his poetry, NEON VERNACULAR, a book I have singularly cherished ever since.

Long ago, a friend defined poetry for me as "the marriage of meaning and music." I remember the late Etheridge Knight bemoaning in one of his haiku poems that "making words swing . . . ain't no square poet's job." Over the years, I've heard a number of poets read poetry, mostly their own; only a handful, such as Amiri Baraka, with any kind of groove and insight.

Komunyakaa and his work were both unknown quantities when I heard him read at Boston University some years ago. Never forget it! His voice was resonant as a cello. His presence was serene, eloquent as burnished mahogany. His casual elegance reminded me of singer "Big Joe" Williams, who fronted Count Basie's band for so many years. Combine that majesty with the power and grace of his reading, the pulse and insight of his poems . . . He finished to a standing ovation, while I, practically doubled over and in tears, as if just kicked in the solar plexus (literally knocked out by the beauty and the passion of what I'd just witnessed) cried in awe and joy. His performance had touched me, as someone else I knew once said, "down here where the soul begins . . ."

What about his poetry moves me so much? His wordsmithing in a distinct blues & jazz-inflected voice. The visceral impact as he explores growing up in the segregated South, his relationship to his father and family and friends; the terror and inhumanity of war; the examination of human frailty and pain and the struggle to decipher and determine a place in this world. I love his sheer virtuosity in sculpting language and rending fresh, startling images: "The tongue labors,/ a victrola in the mad mouth-hole/ of 3 A.M. sorrow." "When days are strung together,/ the hourglass fills/ with worm's dirt." Or perhaps the summation of loneliness (the ultimate human condition) in my favorite of his poems, "The Heart's Graveyard Shift": "Between loves I could stand all day/ at a window watching honeysuckle open/ as I make love to the ghosts/ smuggled inside my head."

This is word music that thrills you . . .

easily teachable
I use this book of poetry in a creative writing class for high school students.While the language can be sometimes tough for them to follow (they're almost always afraid of poetry), the rhythms are so easy for them to follow. You may find yourself tapping your feet to the poems.This is a poet who knows sound, who knows rhythm, who knows the ways to marry those two ideas to words.And he teaches my students to do the same.

One of my favorite books
While I can't agree with the clinical nature of the previous review, I do agree that this book is truly great.However, I would not put Komunyakaa on my list of best African-American Poets,he is simply one of the best poets writing today. As good as Frank Stanford ever was. Truth be told I am wondering when it will be his turn to be names U.S. Poet Laureate.I fully expect him to receive the Nobel Prize.

Now about the book: I have been actively searching out Komunyakaa ever since I saw his poem, "Troubling the Waters."When I bought Neon Vernacular some years ago I put everything else away because Neon Vernacular was the only thing worth looking at for months.Now, I find myself reading "Songs for My Father" over and over.I even wroe a poem based upon "Starlight Scope Myopia" from Dien Cai Dau.Simply put,Yusef Komunyakaa is the one living writer I most want to meet with and talk poetry. ... Read more

Product Description
Poetry that precisely conjures images of the war in Vietnam by an award-winning author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Dien Cai Dau - Awesome and Vivid Vietnam Poems
Professor Yusef Komunyakaa is just an awesome poet and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and the Pulitzer Prize Award for his book, Neon Vernacular. During the spring of 2009 I read four of his books for a class assignment and was just amazed by the brilliance I came across in his poems. He served as a military correspondence during the Vietnam conflict and was right in the thicket of the firefights where he wrote his stories.

Reading Dien Cai Dau brings the battlefields of the jungle right before the eyes. It's realistic, dynamic and vivid. Having served in the army with the Airborne Infantry, I am able to identify with the principles, concepts, and thoughts in this amazing and realistic book.

The first poem Camouflaging the Chimera is chilling. For example read these lines: "The river ran through our bones. Small animals took refuge against our bodies, we held our breath, ready to spring the L-shaped ambush." Such an ambush is one of the deadliest for any enemy force to find itself trapped into and cannot escape.

Moving on to another striking poem entitled, Tunnels, this one is more breath-taking. These are his words, "Crawling down head first into the hole, he kicked the air and disappeared." This is the tunnel rat who finds the enemy underground in swamp, musk, filth and grime.

"Fragging" is a situation in which a soldier should never find his or herself. This means death to the person being "fragged," and comes about when a senior ranking person is being mean-spirited to others in his own unit on the battlefield, thus creating hatred and conflict. Listen to these chilling words: "Slipping a finger into the metal ring, he's married to the devil-the spoon-shaped handle flies off. Everything breaks for green cover, like a hundred red birds released from a wooden box."

Watching a person burn is really a gruesome sight, especially when one is unable to do anything to save the person. These words bring to the forefront such a reality in the poem You and I Are Disappearing: "We stood there with our hands hanging at our sides while she burns like a sack of dry ice, she burns like oil on water, she burns like a shot glass of vodka, she burns like a burning bush driven by a godawful wind."

These fellows in the next poem are very deadly. They will creep out of anywhere in the middle of the night and launch an attack. Listen to these words from the poem Sappers: "They fall & rise again like torchbearers, with their naked bodies greased so moonlight dances off their skins." The imagery in this piece is vivid and poignant. One is able to see them clearly.

It's needless for me to write anymore about these poems. The picture is quite obvious that the poems in this book are just breath-taking and dramatic. One has to read this book to appreciate the drama.

More information on Professor Yusef Komunyakaa, 1994 Pulitzer Prize Winner, may be obtained at the following site:

[...]

Joseph S. Spence, Sr., is the author of "The Awakened One Poetics" which is translated in seven different languages.He also co-authored of two poetry books, "A Trilogy of Poetry, Prose and Thoughts for the Mind, Body and Soul," and "Trilogy Moments for the Mind, Body and Soul." He invented the Epulaeryu poetry form, which focuses on succulent cuisines and drinks. He is published in various forums, including the World Haiku Association; Milwaukee Area Technical College, Phoenix Magazine; and Taj Mahal Review. Joseph is a Goodwill Ambassador for the state of Arkansas, USA, and is an adjunct faculty at Milwaukee Area Technical College. He has completed over twenty years of service with the U.S. Army.

A classic
One of the essential poetic documents reflecting on the war for Southeast Asia. Powerful, insightful, deep and penetrating.

Dien Cai Dau
Yusef Komunyakaa uses such beautiful language to describe the horrors of war that it draws the reader in allowing us to almost see and feel what these young men experienced in the frightening and chaotic days of Vietnam.This work is written with intense emotion and love.It should be read by every American.

Komunyakaa's imagery brings to life the Vietnam War
Yusef Komunyakaa is the kind of poet that wins people over with his honesty.I agree with Adam from Mercer Island when he says that "This is powerful poetry, so much that when I read it I feel like I'm there, watching him and the surroundings that he witnessed in his mind so well."The most impressive aspect of Komunyakaa's poetry is his ability to create realistic visual images within the mind of the reader.The poet does, as Adam from Mercer Island mentioned, make the reader feel as if they are a part of the moment.The connection created allows the reader to fully understand the depth of meaning in each poem.There are several poems within Dien Cai Dau that accurately depict this concept.
The poem "A Greenness Taller Than Gods" is an excellent example of Komunyakaa's use of imagery.The poem begins with, "When we stop,/a green snake starts again/through deep branches./Spiders mend webs we marched into./Monkeys jabber in flame trees,/" (1-5)It is evident from the opening lines that Komunyakaa has a talent for creating visual images.It is like the reader is there with his platoon marching through the jungle and taking orders from the point man. In each of his poems, Komunyakaa also shows the fragile side of the soldiers.In "A Greenness Taller Than Gods", the speaker conveys this fragility by voicing the fears of the soldier.Lines 9-12 state, "The lieutenant puts on sunglasses/& points to an X circled/on his map.When will we learn/to move like trees moves?".The soldier struggles to move like trees knowing full well that it is not possible to do so.The reader gets the idea that the soldiers attempted to do many things that verged on impossible, which causes the reader to sympathize with their situation.Another poem that causes the reader to sympathize with the speaker of the poem is "You and I are Disappearing".
In "You and I are Disappearing", the poet is describing a scene that most people would never want to see in their lifetime.The opening lines state, "The cry I bring down from the hills/belongs to a girl still burning/inside my head.At daybreak/she burns like a piece of paper." (1-4). The visual image created here is vivid, although disturbing.The poet goes on to use several similes to further describe the state of the burning girl.The picture that is painted in the mind of the reader is graphic and forces the reader to understand what the soldiers of Vietnam had to witness and take part in.The poem is a successful attempt at portraying the depravity of the Vietnam War.
Along with Adam from Mercer Island, I too enjoyed the poem "Thanks".This poem creates some very realistic visual images and makes the reader think long and hard about luck and fate.The speaker of the poem is a soldier who is thanking whomever was responsible for him living through the war.Although I agree with Adam from Mercer Island in that the poem is touching, I do not see how it would be heartbreaking.I believe that the overall feel of the poem is encouraging.It makes the reader feel like there is always someone or something watching out for those that we care about when they are at war.I think that "Thanks" is one of the most uplifting poems in the entire book.
Other than the visual images that Komunayaa creates, another strong aspect to his poetry is the way in which he looks at war.As Adam from Mercer Island describes, "He [Komunyakaa] talks about the soldier's main preoccupation:women, home, warm smiles, grenades, RPG's, and dying-of course.".In the poem "Between Days", the poet speaks of a mother whose son has died in the war.The woman does not want to face the fact that she has lost her son, therefore she pretends like he is still going to come home.This aspect of war, the ones left behind, is not a popular subject for war poetry.The poem is such an accurate portrayal of the things that mothers must feel when they lose their sons in battle.The heartbreak is so hard to bear that they just avoid the situation all together.The poet depicts the scene in lines 6-13 by saying, "The room is just as he left it/fourteen years ago, everything/freshly dusted and polished/with lemon oil.The uncashed/death check from Uncle Sam/marks a passage in the Bible/on the dresser, next to the photo/staring out through the window.".Komunyakaa portrays the woman as holding on when war is thought to be about letting go.The woman is faithful to her son even after fourteen years and the situation is both encouraging and heartbreaking.Encouraging in the sense that the woman is still willing to wait for her son and won't cash his death check, but heartbreaking in that the reader knows that one day she is going to have to face the fact that her son is gone.
Komunyakaa's poetry is inspiring.He takes war and puts it into images and concepts that even someone who has never and will never experience war can relate to.
Each poem takes a different look at the Vietnam War, or just war in general, which allows the reader to better understand the situations and feelings that come with fighting in a war.Komunyakaa is an excellent poet and truly has a gift for connecting to his audience.Dien Cai Dau is a powerful book of poetry that uses imagery to connect the reader to the speaker in each poem which, in turn, will bring a new understanding of the Vietnam War to anyone who reads it.

Aesthetic War Poetry
Dien Cai Dau by Yusef Komunyakaa is an artistic display of visual imagery through his writing.Komunyakaa's graphic depictions and strong language stem from emotionally charged subjects and lend themselves unselfishly to the works in this book.Since Komunyakaa served in the Vietnam War as a wartime correspondent, his ties to the detail and imagery that he displays in this book are unquestionable.The author allows the reader a safe passage back to the time and place of one of the most tragic wars in American history by painting individual pictures through each one of his poems.Komunyakaa gives the reader an opportunity to experience the knee-buckling power that war lends to a man's life.The chance to understand what might have been going through someone's head at that time and place is too good to pass up, even if you are not a war poetry fan.

There is more to Dien Cai Dau than just war. In this book of poetry, there is both powerful and graceful imagery.The poetry may depict a harsh or solemn scene; however, the imagery allows the reader to experience that scene to the fullest extent.Take for example this excerpt from "Roll Call"- "The perfect row aligned/with the chaplain's cross/ while a metallic-gray squadron/ of sea gulls circled" (p.15, 10-13).The poem that this image comes from is referring to a respect filled tradition that each platoon had of calling roll for those soldiers who had fallen in battle.The "metallic-gray squadron/ of sea gulls" (12-13) lends the notion of a fly-by of military planes, which is often done to honor those who have passed away or to commemorate a special occasion.Allowing nature, in this case the sea gulls, to honor those who fight to protect the land and rights of those who cannot protect themselves gives this poem a powerful meaning.
Another image that the author paints in our minds is that of the veteran after the war has ended. "Sometimes I can hear them/ marching through the house, /closing the distance.All/ those lonely beds take me back" (16-19).These lines allow the reader not only to see what a veteran would see, but also see why a veteran would not share his past as the author states in lines 13-15.It is with this type of imagery the author gives the reader a glimpse into the mind, heart and soul of a soldier who has been in war.

The type imagery displayed in "Roll Call" is rampant amongst the poems in this book.The demonstration of artistic writing and imagination that Komunyakaa shows in Dien Cai Dau is incredible.There are those who have never seen war and write as if they had, Komunyakaa lived this experience which allows him to put his visions of the battle field and of the somber results on the pages of his book.The strong imagery, life and emotion that Komunyakaa shows in this book are what make this book of poetry so fantastic. ... Read more

Product Description
An award-winning poet evokes his childhood in Louisiana. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Down Home Blues
Magic City remains, perhaps, my favorite volume out of Yusef Komunyakaa's distinguished body of work.With his characteristic blues and jazz-inflected lyricism, Komunyakaa revisits the harrowing violence and racism of the deep south as viewed through a piercingly translucent prism of personal memory.The poems making up this volume are in many respects a poetry of witness, and the eyes through which which this gritty psychic landscape is revealed to the reader penetrate various scenes of troubled family life, poverty, violence and racism with a razor-sharp clarity rife with anger, sorrow, and beauty.Ranging in age from childhood to young adulthood, the speakers, or witnesses, in these poems see through eyes that are simultaneously innocent and jaded, naive and urbane, unflinchingly tough and lyrically sensitive.These are unforgettable poems.Like good blues, they cut right down to the bone.

Unblinking portrait of a childhood in the Jim Crow South
Komunyakaa, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his Neon Vernacular, here writes about his childhood in a Louisiana town.The poems are poignant but unsentimental: the child's world has a certain kind of innocence but issaturated with violence, from the Klan to his father's abuse of his motherto the pragmatic violence of slaughtering a hog.One of the more excitingelements of this book is Komunyakaa's skill in combining realisticdescription with startling and even puzzlingly abstract language. ... Read more

Product Description
Blue Notes offers an assortment of poet Yusef Komunyakaa's writing on contemporary poetry and music. The book is arranged in four sections. The first gathers essays on the work of poets and blues and jazz musicians influential to Komunyakaa's work, from Langston Hughes and Etheridge Knight to Ma Rainey and Thelonious Monk; the second collects a gallery of Komunyakaa's poems and the poet's commentary about each of them. The third selects interviews that reveal the development of the poet's aesthetic sensibility. The final section consists of four artistic explorations that reflect the poet's current interests. Two of of these texts, "Tenebrae" and "Buddy's Monologue," have been recently performed.
As editor Radiclani Clytus makes clear in the volume's introductory essay, although Komunyakaa's poetry has its roots in the stylistic innovations of early twentieth-century American modernists, his writing often reflects his understanding that a "black" experience should not particularize the presentation of one's art. This volume, according to the editor, is an attempt to understand Komunyakaa's critical eclecticism within the context of his own words.
Yusef Komunyakaa's books of poetry include I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head, Magic City, Thieves of Paradise, and Neon Vernacular, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award in 1994.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Blue Notes
"Blue Notes" is useful for readers needing basic information about Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa. The volume is divided into four distinct sections. One may read essays by Komunyakaa(on Etheridge Knight, Robert Hayden, and jazz musicians), commentaries he has written in response to his own work, and works that were in process as "Blue Notes" was published.In addition, the inclusion of old interviews with Komunyakaa gives readers a view of the arc of YK's aesthetic development, as well as insights into his views on the subjects of his work.The book fills a need. ... Read more

Product Description
Best known for Neon Vernacular, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1994, and for Dien Cai Dau, a collection of poems chronicling his experiences as a journalist in Vietnam, Yusef Komunyakaa has become one of America's most compelling poets. Pleasure Dome gathers the poems in these two distinguished books and five others--over two and a half decades of Komunyakaa's work. In addition, Pleasure Dome includes 25 early, uncollected poems and a rich selection of 18 new poems. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Very big and very good.
Yusef Komunyakaa, Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan, 2001)

When they say "new and collected," they mean "new and collected." Clocking in at just shy of five hundred pages, Pleasure Dome does collect, as far as I can tell, the sum total of Pulitzer winner Komunyakaa's work to date. It's a massive book, even larger than Jim Harrison's recent The Shape of the Journey, almost approaching the sheer magnitude of Hardy's Complete Poems, the largest single-author book of poetry to ever reside on my shelf. (Morris' The Earthly Paradise is in twelve volumes.) And while it does get inconsistent at times, the overall recommendation on it is a resonating yes.

Komunyakaa, a Vietnam war vet who began writing while in the bush, infuses much of his poetry with the war. This is not terribly surprising. What is is that, for atleast ninety-five percent of the war poetry, he does not allow the message to run away with the medium. That Komunyakaa's collections Toys in a Field and Dien Cai Dau are some of the most stirring work ever written on the Vietnam experience is testament to the power of McLuhan's oft-used truism "the medium is the message." Komunyakaa lets the story tell the story, and the story is stronger for it.

It is to be expected that no poet can be perfect, and this is true of Komunyakaa. However, the number of times he slips into messagizing mode can be counted here on the fingers of one hand, an absolutely astounding feat in a book of over four hundred pages of poetry; he is truly a master of the poetic art.

This is a book to be browsed through at leisure, not read per se; it took me almost six weeks to get through it, and I'm a speedreader. It demands time and effort, and will offer the reader willing to put them in rewards in kind. *** ½

Wonderful collection.
Mr. Komunyakaa is a wonderful poet deserving of all the praise he has garnered.This book is a perfect opportunity for new readers to introduce themselves to his charming work.

Simply Brilliant!
Komunyakaa is by far the best American poet writing today.Pay no attention to those who fail to understand his unique way with words.Purists write boring poetry anyway...

brilliance without the grammar
Yusef Komunyakaa is one of the few no-nonsense poets of our time.If you are one who looks for proper grammar in poetry, then maybe you should be reading prose.I have found that most people who enjoy poetry, enjoy it for the (excuse the borrowing) truth and beauty it discovers and is able to share with the reader.Although most sweeping generalizations on "how to" write poetry are flawed, it makes sense that Ezra Pound would want to set forth his own rules about abstraction, ... ....However, it makes no sense to apply rules set forth decades ago about poetry that is being written in the present ... .Pound was a member of a different literary movement than Komunyakaa, and I don't see what his unrelated take on abstraction has to do with Komunyakaa's writing.Komunyakaa is not abstract, and he is able to write about his life experience--including his time in Vietnam--with clarity and elegance....I would [also] recommend his book "Dien Cai Dau" which is perhaps his least abstract and most grammatically correct book of poetry....

Komunyakaa: a Magician of Imagery
What Komunyakaa brings so decisively to poetry is an exquisite and pungent language, woven into imagery that draws readers down the corridors of near surreal, yet enthralling, worlds.Forget the obtuse, emotional, and otherwise pseudo-critical 'reviews': Komunyakaa refuses to replicate the limpness and timidity that characterizes so much of the poetry of our day. More to the point, the reader who is truly paying attention comes away from these poems with a kind of vertigo spun from a refreshing interplay of similes and metaphors -- both complex and extended. This applies to every book of his poetry, all of which I highly recommend. ... Read more

Product Description

Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa brings together over two decades of interviews and profiles with one of America's most prolific and acclaimed contemporary poets. Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947) describes his work alternately as "word paintings" and as "music," and his affinity with the visual and aural arts is amply displayed in these conversations. The volume also addresses the diversity and magnitude of Komunyakaa's literary output. His collaborations with artists in a variety of genres, including music, dance, drama, opera, and painting have produced groundbreaking performance pieces. Throughout the collection, Komunyakaa's interest in finding and creating poetry across the artistic spectrum is made manifest.

For his collection Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, 1977-1989, Komunyakaa became the first African American male to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Through his work he provides keen insight into life's mysteries from seemingly inconsequential and insignificant life forms ("Ode to the Maggot") to some of the most compelling historical and life-altering events of our time, such as the Vietnam War ("Facing It"). Influenced strongly by jazz, blues, and folklore, as well as the classical poetic tradition, his poetry comprises a riveting chronicle of the African American experience.

Product Description
Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa delivers a powerful meditation on American, and particularly African American, life in the wake of Vietnam. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

one of the most original poets out there
I had known of Komunyakaa for a while, but only recently began reading him. I'm glad I did. This is a book full of very different types of poems--some with regular stanza lengths, some with numbered sections, some short and without stanzas--and it is consistently excellent throughout. I think many poets tend to repeat themselves, but Komunyakaa seems to be one of the most courageous and technically sound poets there is. He is known for his poems about jazz, racial prejudice and the Vietnam War ( the entire section "Debriefing Ghosts" is a terrific sequence of anti-war poems), but I also enjoyed the ones not as easily catagorized. "Kosmos" is one of the best poems written to Walt Whitman I've ever read, and "The Glass Ark," about a couple unearthing fossils in the LaBrea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, is funny, playful and sexual without losing an odd seriousness.His language at times reminds me of Charles Simic--he seemingly finds the most disparate images that somehow seem "right"--but he is entirely on his own when it comes to combining long and short sequences, humor, sex, music and memory. Highly reccomended.

Extraordinary
I was stunned at the amount of intelligence and density in this poetry. I ordered this after hearing "The Deck" on NPR, as a gift for my wife, and we both consider it a treasure. ... Read more

Product Description

With The Jazz Poetry Anthology, this volume offers a comprehensive exploration of the history of jazz poetry. The Second Set gathers many poets omitted from The Jazz Poetry Anthology, including Gwendolyn Brooks, Arthur Brown, Diane di Prima, Henry Dumas, Nikki Giovanni, David Henderson, Anselm Hollo, Haki Madhubuti, Michael McClure, Larry Neal, Dudley Randall, Eugene B. Redmond, Carolyn M. Rodgers, Ntozake Shange, A. B. Spellman, and Jay Wright. The Second Set fills out the history of jazz poetry with poems written before World War II, as well as those from the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, and includes contemporary writers from a range of cultural backgrounds, including Ai, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Martín Espada, Joy Harjo, Keorapetse Kgositsile, Michael Longley, Mwatabu Okantah, Charles Simic, Lorenzo Thomas, Derek Walcott, Ron Welburn, and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

Embracing a wide variety of poems informed by jazz, The Second Set also includes statements of poetics by many of the poets anthologized.

Customer Reviews (1)

A literate, knowledgeable dissection
Flashback Through The Heart: The Poetry Of Yusef Komunyakaa by Angela M. Salas (Associate Professor of English, Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa) is a literary study of African-American poet Yusef Komunyakaa's works and of interpretations and reactions to it. In particular, author Angela M. Salas stresses the importance of a balanced perspective when taking Komunyakaa's race and the race-related themes within his poetry into account. Reading Komunyakaa solely for his views upon race diminishes the full impact of his work as surely as neglecting the role race plays in his work. A literate, knowledgeable dissection, meticulously reasoned extensively documented in its conclusions and subjective judgements. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description

"Poetry encourages us to have dialogue through the observed, the felt, and the imaginary," writes editor Yusef Komunyakaa in his thought-provoking introduction to The Best American Poetry 2003. As a black child of the American South and a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, Komunyakaa brings his singular vision to this outstanding volume. Included here is a diverse mix of senior masters, crowd-pleasing bards, rising stars, and the fresh voices of an emerging generation. With comments from the poets elucidating their work and series editor David Lehman's eloquent foreword assessing the state of the art, The Best American Poetry 2003 is a must-have for readers of contemporary poetry.

Jonathan Aaron • Beth Anderson • Nin Andrews • Wendell Berry • Frank Bidart • Diann Blakely • Bruce Bond • Catherine Bowman • Rosemary Catacalos • Joshua Clover • Billy Collins • Michael S. Collins • Carl Dennis • Susan Dickman • Rita Dove • Stephen Dunn • Stuart Dybek • Charles Fort • James Galvin • Amy Gerstler • Louise Glück • Michael Goldman • Ray Gonzalez • Linda Gregg • Mark Halliday • Michael S. Harper • Matthea Harvey • George Higgins • Edward Hirsch • Tony Hoagland • Richard Howard • Rodney Jones • Joy Katz • Brigit Pegeen Kelly • Galway Kinnell • Carolyn Kizer • Jennifer L. Knox • Kenneth Koch • John Koethe • Ted Kooser • Philip Levine • J. D. McClatchy • W. S. Merwin • Heather Moss • Stanley Moss • Paul Muldoon • Peggy Munson • Marilyn Nelson • Daniel Nester • Naomi Shihab Nye • Ishle Yi Park • Robert Pinsky • Kevin Prufer • Ed Roberson • Vijay Seshadri • Alan Shapiro • Myra Shapiro • Bruce Smith • Charlie Smith • Maura Stanton • Ruth Stone • James Tate • William Tremblay • Natasha Trethewey • David Wagoner • Ronald Wallace • Lewis Warsh• Susan Wheeler • Richard Wilbur • C. K. Williams • Terence Winch • David Wojahn Robert Wrigley • Anna Ziegler • Ahmos Zu-Bolton II ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Another Exceptional Read
I will say once again,

David Lehman is one of the most facinating writers, poets, and editors that I have ever read. He is the author of The Daily Mirror, a wonderful and well penned selection of poems.
I believe his perspective and talent for finding the best poets lies in his experience. Mr.Lehman is a great editor and any reader who chooses to pick up and read this book will be thankful.

One can learn so much from the writers and makers of The Best American Poetry books. I also recommend, his most recent book, The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets. I give all these books 5 stars!

One of the Better of the Best
It seems a general rule of thumb that if you enjoy the guest editor's work, you will enjoy most of their selections. I enjoy Koumunyakaa and his choices for this years best poetry. I especially enjoyed his introduction talking about the lack of content in many poems today.As with most books in this series, there are many familiar names such as Merwin, Williams, Kizer, Levine, Philips, but also some new and hopefully upcoming poets, such as Joy Katz.There are a few September 11th poems, but most of them are readable.This is one of the best in the series that I have read.

another mediocre volume
What we have here is another mediocre volume in what should be a great series. And this year's looked promising, but you'll find very few poems worth noting inside.

THANK-YOU'S
Thank you, David Lehman, for having chosen Yusef Komunyakaa to edit THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2003, the most interesting since Adrienne Rich edited THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 1996. And thank you, Yusef Komunyakaa, for not shuffling the same old, worn cards again! Congratulations to all! ... Read more

Product Description
Bringing new life to the world's oldest story, Yusef Komunyakaa and Chad Gracia have refashioned a classic Sumerian legend into a compelling verse play. In this ageless saga, Gilgamesh of Uruk, part god and part man, embarks on an other-worldly quest in search of immortality. This new version elaborates on the key themes of the story and weaves them into a vibrant and emotional new form. Wesleyan's edition of Gilgamesh is like no other and will take its place among the most powerful and engaging interpretations of this timeless tale. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

maybe you just have to SEE the play...
If a verse play is going to be written about a great and ancient epic, it ought to surpass the language of the original (or, since I myself can definitely NOT read the original cuneiform tablets: It should surpass the language of the original's translations).

The beginning of the play is too hokey. Although the length of each stich is reminiscent of most translations of the original tablets, their brevity at the beginning of the play, as each character speaks no more than three lines at a time until late into the play, sucks the beauty out of them and lends them the aforesaid hokiness.

When characters begin to deliver lengthier soliloquies, the play picks up and can be appreciated more for its language (which I'm assuming everyone will take to be any verse play's focal point).

The sentiments regarding death in the play, a huge theme of it, I think are cliché. You'd think, Obviously, because this play is an interpretation of an extant literary work (if you'd call something so old "literary"), its sentiments are going to be cliche. But because Gracia creates so much hype about the theme in the book's introduction, I anticipated much more.

Recap: Beginning sucks. Middle-end is good.

And, to avoid spoiling the ending in any way, I've decided not to write anything about it.

PEACE

... Read more

Product Description
The Silence of Men confronts and breaks the silence in men's lives surrounding sex, family, power and violence; graphic and intimate, celebratory and heartbreakingly painful, these are the poems of a survivor for whom writing, because it breaks that silence, has been a primary means of survival. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A unique exploration
It is a rare thing to find works by a man willing to explore, and subsequently reveal, all the features that have informed his experience of boyhood-to-manhood, then challenge and question virtually every one of those features, reaffirming some, rejecting others, all in search of a formulation of personal identify that resonates at his core in a way that howls "authentic"--even when it flies in the face of some of the most basic assumptions our culture makes about what it means to be a man. At turns enlightening, heartbreaking, even humorous, a brave work.

Debut book of poetry, highly recommended......
The Silence of Men is Richard Jeffrey Newman's first book of poetry.The book is beautifully printed and presented by CavanKerry Press, in keeping with the contents. Newman is a man who has learned from and been strengthened by his life experience. Love, family, sex, religion, and violence have all played integral parts in making him the man he is today.Poetically, his words penetrate to the reader's marrow and shine with honesty and emotion.

Richard Jeffrey Newman's work is exceptional.Readers won't have to scratch their heads and guess at his meanings.He expresses human emotions in ways profound, powerful, and poignant.In The Silence of Men, he tries "to give the dream a shape this page will hold."How he gives life to those words taking shape on the page is an enlightening journey.

This book of poetry for mature readers is highly recommended.

The power of living memory
I have now read this entire book three times, and it continues to move me.What I appreciate most is Newman's insistence on letting memory and the past lead to reflecting upon and enriching the present.Memory within these poems is an ever-present, ever-changing force, not an obsession or grudge to be chipped away, but a source of richer voice and vision.

The author's persona comes across throughout as one that is willing to live deeply and fully, actively riding and owning the waves of circumstance, reaching for meaning from them.People are very much alive to him--this is not the voice of a solipsist.We see all this in long poems such as "Poem from the Barnes and Noble Cafe" and "Coitus Interruptus" as well as in his intriguing imaginative "story" poems.

The speaker is consistently one who feels the pain of today's violent world, and who views sex as a rich, reflective dialogue that leads to increased humanity.He avoids conventional masculine metaphors for sexuality, instead portraying himself as a tree, as earth.His is also a voice capable of beautiful longing ("Because"), and of a polyamorous acceptance ("Here").

What is not just innovative but admirable about the narrative voice is his relentless determination to face the consequences of his actions, like in "Bill's Story," or to come to terms with his dad's abandoning of him, without regret or recrimination, only melancholy ("After the Funeral").Ultimately, Newman presents himself as part of a deeply human(e) fellowship of "complex beings / we believe ourselves to be: the people / we need always to come back to" ("The Speed and Weight of Justice"). ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Yusef Komunyakaa is one of the most highly regarded US poets now at work; "Scandalize My Name" selects from twenty-five years of his remarkable poetry. Komunyakaa's vision of the poem as a 'distilled insinuation' is honoured and intensified in this graceful and sensual verse, whose vigorous myth-making only heightens the political and social realities it often addresses. "Scandalize My Name" introduces a poet of great versatility and singular commitment, one whose eye remains steady where others have turned away. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

Smart and evocative
I ordered this book after reading one of Ulku's poems on the Ploughshares website. It turns out that none of the poems that are in Ploughshares' archives are in the book, but all the better:it gives me something to look forward to when his next book is out.

As for the book at hand, Meterorology packs in 40 high-voltage poems, starting with "July", which you can read using the "look inside" link above.If you've ever lived in an iffy neighborhood, you'll relate. I found that the details in Ulku's poems situate the reader in the moment so you "see" the various places, people, and relationships depicted in the poems, but it's the rhythm and the precision of the line breaks that makes the experience visceral.This is important because many of the poems are startling in terms of point of view and of situations or events that unfold in the poems.The second poem of the collection, for instance, titled "Bad Thoughts, Mixed Messages," (also viewable via the "look inside" link above) begins with "It was after the nation-states broke down, and enclaves of races fought for power over continental trading blocks"-an attention-getting line, and one we may take a disinterested interest in, as it has nothing to do with "us" as North Americans.The poem continues, describing how "Normal people shot each other in the streets, just like that."Well, maybe not so much "not like us".An uneasiness builds through the poem and suddenly elevates in the beginning of the fourth stanza, with the line "Others raised their children in the high Mojave".At this the reader understands that the narrator is referring indeed to "us".This, along with other poems in the collection such as "After Completion" and "Untitled Meridians" present the stark alternate realities that are born of viciousness, ignorance, and complacency.

As much as the above poems elicit a strong feeling of dread, there is a great deal of tenderness, of joy and compassion in this collection as well.One of my favorites is the wonderful "Dedication" ("for Mau-Mau Kitty, whose name contains the mantra Aum, the spoken essence of the Universe,") is a sheer delight, reminding me of Christopher Smart's verses on his own cat in the way Ulku is able to express joy and love regarding an animal without sounding sappy.The cat (who appears to wipe out pidgeons, get in cat fights, and leave rodents in bed as a present) makes a return appearance in "Three Rivers", a poem of longing and tenderness about "Anne-Marie", who in turn makes a return appearance (along with a cat-whether "Mau-Mau Kitty" or not is up for speculation) in "Planting a Garden."After the stark earlier poems in the collection, the later poems work as salve and reassurance; as indeed, the second-to-the-last poem, "Lullaby" assures us:"You are safe./You are lying in a hammock from the cult of the black sun" which has the mantra, "information."The last poem, "West" describing a walk down a logging road, is a joyful affirmation of not only the restorative properties of nature, but of life itself:

. . . .the air is thick with good scents to smell
and there is time to small them all
and room for lightning and for leaves to turn in the rain,
for the oldest trees to fall, and the others, stunted in shadow, to emerge.
There's room for the picnic lodge and the mushrooms under the doorstep.
It is ambrosia to breathe and to grow.

This lovely first book, with an introduction from Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa, is itself "ambrosia" to read and experience.

It is a splendid collection of poems!
I usually don't read poetry.However, the poems were so beautifully written that I wanted to continue reading.In Planting a Garden, he has painted such a vivid picture.In Three Rivers, I could relate to hissadness of being apart from his partner.On the other hand, some of thepoems left me wondering just what he meant. I would recommend this book toanyone. ... Read more

Product Description
A daredevil poetic achievement nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award

. . . A god isn't worth
A drop of water in the hell of his good

Imagination, if we can't curse
Sunsets & threaten to forsake him
In his storehouse of belladonna,
Tiger hornets, & snakebites.
--from "Meditations in a Swine Yard"

No turn in any life cycle is taboo as Yusef Komunyakaa examines the primal rituals shared by insects, animals, human beings, and deities in Talking Dirty to the Gods. From "Hearsay" to "Heresy," these 132 poems, each consisting of four quatrains, are framed by innuendo and lively satire. Komunyakaa looks to nature and configures his own paradigm, in which an event as commonplace as the jewel wasp laying an egg in a cockroach becomes every bit as grand as Zeus's infidelity. The formally rigorous collection is itself a design for a systematic cosmos, a world compressed but abundant in surprise and delight.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Poet Walks Through all of Western Civilization
Where Baraka, as a nationalist poet, looked for new forms from Africa to escape the prejudiced West, Yusef K appropriates all of Western culture with aplomb, dealing with the slave societies of the Greek and Romans and their Gods as well as walking through the middle ages and talking about current times. His knowledge of ancient history is impressive. The poems work on many levels, like the poem "Racoons," which is about hunting these animals with dogs but also about, horribly, using the same techniques to hunt down runaway slaves in the slave south. No book I know deals so powerfully with the long history of large scale slavery in Western history.

I should have bought this book...
I picked it up at the book store and was flipping through it.Wow!Seemed to be a little more accessible than some of Komunyakaa's other work, but just as powerful if not more so.

Not Komunyakaa's best offering
I was looking forward to reading "Talking Dirty to the Gods" from the moment I first saw it mentioned in "Poets & Writers." I was slightly disappointed with the book, however. My understanding is this was a collection of poems which were written during Yusef's walks to his classes. Every one of the 131 poems is four stanzas of four lines each. Many focus on Greek mythology (keeping with the theme of the book.) It isn't that the work is hard to understand, but it is more ambiguous than "Magic City" and "Dien Cai Dau" in its imagery. Two poems, however, caught my eye as being two of the best I've ever read. "Bedazzled", and "Genet" are exceptionally beautiful and finely honed poems with strong images and an afterthought that makes the reader just say "wow". Unfortunately the entire book is not like this, as "Magic City", and "Dien Cai Dau" were for me. Overall this book is definately worth reading, but I would not spend the extra money to get the hardback, if I had it to do over again. ... Read more

Product Description

"... in a class by itself... sensitive, moving, and powerful jazz imagery... the perfect companion to listening to good jazz." -- Jazziz Magazine

"In the course of the history of jazz, there have been only a few articles that get to the core of the meaning of jazz. These poems hit it right on the head, and the book is certainly essential for anyone who is interested in our music." -- Dizzy Gillespie

"To those interested in the impact of jazz upon the poetry of our century I recommend this anthology altogether without reservation." -- John Lucas, JazzTimes

"... essential... Its virtues are varied and copious, and not the least among them is discovering a writer whose work is new to you." -- Los Angeles Reader

"What makes this work most enjoyable is knowing the music and musicians and using that knowledge to understand and judge the poets' reactions to the elements in the music that please and inspire us." -- MultiCultural Review

"Filled with a variety of form, rhythm, and sound, this anthology is an absolute MUST for anyone who is even remotely interested in jazz and modern literature." -- David Baker

Since the turn of the century, poets have responded to jazz in all its musical and cultural overtones. The poems here cover the range of jazz itself: from early blues to free jazz and experimental music. Among the 132 poets included are James Baldwin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, Mina Loy, Ishmael Reed, and Sonia Sanchez. This anthology represents the broad appreciation for jazz as poetic inspiration, not only from the Beat movement but from writers across the decades and around the world.

Customer Reviews (1)

Nice
This is great stuff.I don't get into poetry much, but this is just great stuff.I am getting into Jazz as a music form, and this is increasing my love for jazz.This is one of those books you pick up and read when nothing else captures you.This will capture you.You get into this and don't want to put it down.Enjoy. ... Read more

Product Description
Featuring contributions from widely published and practicing poets who are also experienced teachers and presenters of poetry, The Eye of the Poet: Six Views of the Art and Craft of Poetry provides students and other readers with invaluable practical advice. Ideal for courses in poetry writing and creative writing, it includes six sections written by Billy Collins, Carol Muske, David Baker and Ann Townsend, Yusef Komunyakaa, Maxine Kumin, and David Citino. These poets speak their minds about their relationship with their art and craft, offering guidance to writers at all levels of experience from the beginner to the veteran.
In his section, Billy Collins looks at the ways reading and writing poetry give readers pleasure, while Carol Muske's essay examines the question, "What is a poem?" David Baker and Ann Townsend discuss the formal and musical aspects of composing and reading poems; they include many engaging exercises and directions to further reading. Yusef Komunyakaa enrolls readers in a virtual poetry workshop, Maxine Kumin considers the necessities and demands of audience, and David Citino talks about the roles that poets play as they conceive and execute their work. In their essays, the contributors include examples of poems--written by themselves or others--to illustrate key points. While the chapters are meant to be self-contained explorations, they are also interrelated parts of the volume as a whole. The Eye of the Poet is a stimulating conversation in which successful poets share with readers their enthusiasm, knowledge, and vision, as well as their estimation of the possibilities of the poem. In this book, students of poetry will discover the wide variety of options available to them when they sit down to create their own works. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Aye of the Poet too
These are essays on the craft, process, and thinking of poetry. It's the sort of book that's easy to carry and worth carrying because when you sit down to read it you're happy you have it.There are six essays by seven authors. Two essays are outstanding.The first is by Billy Collins, not really my type of poet in the large picture, but he's accessible, which I think is the goal of the book. He pursues the question of what happens to us when we read a poem and he approaches the possible answers from a variety of points touching on the someplace else-ness of a poem or the way it asks readers to slow down.For me the most memorable essay was by Yusef Komunyakaa and I marked quite a few passages that I will reconsider as I continue writing and planning future classes.I suggest getting a copy, for these two essays alone. However, if you take my recommendation, don't get mad if you find a pedantic essay about meter (that I felt was better presented in other books)or other less than compelling pieces.That said, I think what Citino has done is admirable because we can never have too many books where poets speak to their processes and passions. ... Read more