about Yusef Komunyakaa.

In class on Friday we went over a few different poems and poets, but the one poet that stood out to me and spoke to me the most was Yusef Komunyakaa. First your overwhelmed by this man's last name, its a mouth full. But the poem that was discussed in class was the poem Blackberries. Like i say all the time i believe to truth understand what the poet is saying in his poems you have to know some information about his past history. After looking over notes of his man's life i discovered he was born in Bogalusa, LA in 1947. He is an American poet that teaches at New York University, and is a member of Fellowship of Southern Writers.

Along with his list of awards his subject matter ranges from his African American experience through rural Southern life before the civl rights and his experience as a soldier during the Vietnam War. He served a tour in the Army during the war where he acted as a journalist for a military power, covering major actions, interviewing fellow soldiers. Once he returned to the states he turned toward poetry, and became an important icon for American writers in his generation. He was also married to an Australian novelist, Mandy Sayer for ten years (1985-1995) and was engaged in a long-term relationship with poet, Reetika Vazirani, who killed herself and their child Jahan Vazirani Komunyakaa in 2003. Both of their wrist was slashed, which was thought to be suicide. Supposely, this was because their marriage was having some possible troubles.

He describes poetry as "a kind of distilled insinuation. It’s a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full frontal assault."

But instead of Blackberries my favorite poem was "Venus's Flytraps." After reading his poem i felt a quick connection with him. He talks about struggles during his life when he was five. My parents went through a divorce when I was young, and his mother said he was a mistake.Both a powerful things to happen to a young boy. Lines from the poem that supports his emotions are "I wonder what death tastes like" and "My mama says I'm a mistake/ that i made her a bad girl./ My playhouse is underneath/ our house, & I hear people/ telling each other secrets." These two quotes from the poem show the solitude that he was feeling when he was young and makes the reader feel uneasy. I believe another quote that symbols how the emotional scars of a young boy will stay with him when he is an adult is "I wish I knew why/ the music in my head makes me scared." The poem symbolizes as a whole the lost of innocence that he went through as a young five year old boy. A venus flytrap holds its prey and traps them inside. I believe this supports the way he feels he had no option when he was younger but to suffer, and possibly die. I also beleive that Komunyakaa wants the reader to feel almost trapped when they are reading the poem, and remember the upsetting memories of their own youth.