Facing It By Yusef Komunyakaa

'Facing It' by Yusef Komunyakaa is a 31 line poem that does not adhere to whatever particular rhyme scheme or strictly metered pattern. Komunyakaa has equanimous this poem by alternating between short inclement lines and longer, drawn out phrases. Both of these styles of writing apply enjambment. The lines cut off in unexpected places and 1 must move quickly from line to line to follow the narrative.

The slice is composed in first person and due to contextual information, the reader will come to understand that the speaker is in fact Komunyakaa himself. The poem details his own reaction to seeing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the emotions he carries due to his time as a war announcer

Vietnam Veteran's Memorial in Washington,

Summary

"Facing Information technology" by Yusef Komunyakaa speaks of one man'due south reaction to seeing the Vietnam Veteran'south Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the memories brought up past its reflective, granite surface.

The verse form begins with the speaker facing the blackness granite wall of the memorial. He sees his own "black face" in the surface and feels as if he is slipping into his past as he reads all of the names written on the wall. He is returned to the time menstruation that he served, or visited, Vietnam during the war, and imagines that his name should exist alongside the 52,022 that are engraved on the monument'southward surface.

In the second half of the piece the speaker sees the reflection of a number of mundane interactions in the memorial. He is experiencing the simultaneous existence of peace and war and how it changes those who environment it. The poem comes to the conclusion that no i living in peacetime could total understand the experience of i who saw the horrors of war; horror at facts and figures is a temporary matter, lived experience is permanent.

Analysis of Facing It

Lines 1-nine

The poem begins with the speaker already on location in front of the memorial. It is important to understand that while this poem might exist being told from a contained first person perspective, the setting in which information technology is located is far from solitary. The memorial is a popular destination and more likely at that place would be a number of people walking, talking, and agonizing the speaker's solitude. This makes his contemplation of the black granite memorial all the deeper equally he has been able to find a articulate moment to think alongside the chaos of D.C.

If one did not take the respective background data, it would be impossible to know where the speaker is or what he is looking at. All 1 is able to tell from the first lines that the speaker is black, and that he is looking at something made of "blackness granite." Lines i and two have been composed equally a hook to appoint the reader's involvement and, ideally, inspire them to read along further.

The side by side two lines are a prime number instance of the choppy phrasing that is feature of this poem. The speaker is within his own earth, narrating his own experience. He thinks,

I said I wouldn't

dammit: No tears.

This makes articulate to the reader that wherever the speaker is, it is somewhere quite moving. Information technology is also not a surprise to the narrator who was, and then he idea, prepared for what he was going to come across. He was determined non to let his emotions get the best of him only he couldn't aid only cry.

The next line shows a brutal split in the speaker's listen. He knows himself besides well to fully commit to the notion that he is without emotions. He sees himself as beingness both "stone" and "mankind." He can be impenetrable and malleable at the same fourth dimension.The well-nigh important epitome of this department is that of his own reflection staring back at him. It is like a different being. It is the rock for the moment, while he retains the flesh. It is "eyeing" him from the granite as if displeased with his show of emotion. The only way that he tin can find release from the stare is to turn away.

Lines ten-16

Although he might move to the side, there is no escaping where he is. No matter where he looks he sees the "Vietnam Veterans Memorial." It is everywhere, including "within" him. It has constitute its style into his soul and is not letting go. Information technology is in these lines that he reader finally comes to understand, if one did not have the knowledge previously, that the speaker is at a specific and well-known location.

He is continuing before the "58,022 names" of all those who died in the war and is captivated by the way that the calorie-free moves on the granite. This is conspicuously the instance, equally in the previous section he could not break contact with his reflection. The speaker is engages further with the monument equally he takes in the full horror of the vast lists of names that encompass the granite surface. As he goes "downwards" the list he is,

Half-expecting to find

[his] own in letters like smoke.

These terminal lines reveal to the reader that the narrator was part of the state of war in Vietnam. One never comes to fully empathize what his role was, but he came close to expiry at i point or another. He feels in some ways as if his name should be alongside those he knew in Vietnam. Peradventure he feels like he did die there, and now seeing the full outcome of the war, that he never actually left.

Lines 17-24

In the second one-half of the verse form the speaker reminisces on specific memories of his fourth dimension in Vietnam. Upwards until this point the reader was only given a vague feeling of what it was like for the speaker. In this department of lines he narrator describes one of the names on the wall and the person who used to exist attached to it. He speaks of, "Andrew Johnson," and recalls how he saw a "booby trap" flash white as it killed him. The memory is blurred, the expiry no more a wink, but information technology is poignant in its simplicity.

He looks deeper into the memorial and begins to clarify the reflections of others. He sees himself, and those around him. They are all part of the state of war in 1 way or another. Whether through their support, protestation, service, or the unproblematic fact that they are living in the world. He is connecting the mundane elements of a "woman'southward blouse" and a "blood-red bird" to the intensity of the Vietnam War. The woman that he can run across in the monument is walking away from it, and the names that were perching on her reflection remain, they are unable to reenter life.

He sees other images in the stone, ones that "cutting" through its surface, only are gone as quickly as they came.

Lines 25- 31

From his spot in front of the moment, gazing at the names and at those who are passing behind him, he sees a "white vet." Another veteran of the war, a white man, is there to experience the same thing the speaker is. For one brief moment, they expect through 1 another'south eyes. They are united by their mutual experience, something the majority of visitors to the wall are unable to tap into.

The white man is like him, they are both images floating in the blackness granite. The newcomer has lost something though and information technology appears to the speaker as if the man's right arm, which he surely lost in the war, has been absorbed past the monument. The state of war, and the celebrity one might have idea would come with it, take taken something incredibly physical from the white soldier.

The final image that the speaker sees is that of a woman who seems to exist,

…trying to erase names:

This is non the case though, she is simply brushing a boy's hair. The poet chose these mundane and simple images in an effort to show the dissimilarity between the earth at habitation and the globe at war. These existences can function simultaneously and come close to touching, just never fully or completely know one another.