Facing It
Vietnam War veteran, Yusef Komunyakka describes a direct experience into his emotions when he went a visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the poem Facing It. In the poem Facing It, Komunyakka caught my attention because of the title, and how Komunyakka explains the meaning of his title, by the types of speech he has in his poem, and how he describes the wall.
Komunyakka’s figurative launuage in this poem drives home the speaker’s feelings and memories that he is encountering at the war memorial, Yusef starts the poem off with an example of visual imagery. He states, “black face fades.” This tells us that Yusef is African American, and it also tells us the key word fades, meaning that he wasn’t the only person affected by the …show more content…
Facing It involves a wall memorial, engraved on the wall are the names of the deceased veterans. Komunyakka views the memorial as a resemblance of himself in some ways he quotes, “my black face fades, hiding inside the black granite.” This is referring to his own skin color and the color of the black memorial. The memorial did not bring up new emotions for Komunyakka but ones that hit closer to home instead. Komunyakka is angry that he is a survivor and is having trouble dealing with his own personal emotions. He also struggles with reading the names on the memorial and he even states that he halfway expects to see his name on the wall, of deceased veterans. Komunyakka tells himself that he is stone, and we see that Yusef is battling with an internal emotional problem, he is also saying that he is like the memorial made of granite, meaning that he is strong like the …show more content…
Facing It involves a wall that is a memorial, engraved on the wall are the names of all of the deceased veterans. Yusef sees the memorial as a resemblance of himself in some ways as he says “my black face fades, hiding inside the black granite”. This is referring to his own color of skin and the color of the black memorial. The memorial causes split emotions for Komunyakka and also causes some old emotions to pop up. Yusef struggles with reading the names on the memorial and he even states that he half way expects to see his name on the wall, of deceased veterans. Yusef tells himself that he is stone, and we can see here that he is struggling inside with his emotions, he is also saying that he is like the memorial made of granite, stating he himself is like the wall, very