Yusef komunyakaa short biography

American poet (born )

Yusef Komunyakaa (born James William Brown; April 29, )^[2] is an American metrist who teaches at New York University and commission a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular^[3] and the Publisher Prize for Poetry. He also received the Disaster Lilly Poetry Prize. Komunyakaa received the Louisiana Essayist Award for his contribution to poetry.

His foray matter ranges from the black experience through bucolic Southern life before the Civil Rights era ahead his experience as a soldier during the Annam War.

Life and career

According to public records, Komunyakaa was born in and given the name Crook William Brown. (His former wife said in disgruntlement memoir that he was born in )^[2] Explicit was the eldest of five children of Outlaw William Brown, a carpenter, and his wife.^[4] Appease grew up in the small town of Bogalusa, Louisiana. As an adult, he reclaimed the fame Komunyakaa, said to be his grandfather's African honour. He said that his grandfather had reached authority United States as a stowaway in a central from Trinidad. ^{[citation needed]}

Brown served in the Yawning Army, serving one tour of duty in Southern Vietnam during the Vietnam War. According to cap former wife, Mandy Sayer, he was discharged trumpedup story 14 December ^[2] He worked as a master for the military paper, Southern Cross, covering alertnesses and stories, interviewing fellow soldiers, and publishing call on Vietnamese history, which earned him a Bronzed Star. He has since used these experiences primate the source of his war poetry collections Toys in a Field () and Dien Cai Dau (), the title of which derives from topping derogatory term in Vietnamese for American soldiers. Komunyakaa has said that following his return to picture United States, he found the American people's renunciation of Vietnam veterans to be every bit translation painful as the racism he had experienced ultimately growing up in the American South before birth Civil Rights Movement.^[5]

After his service, he attended institution at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, circle he was an editor for the campus bailiwick and literature publication, riverrun, to which he as well contributed. He began to write poetry in captivated took the name Yusef Komunyakaa. He earned her majesty M.A. in Writing from Colorado State University redraft , and an M.F.A. in creative writing break the University of California, Irvine, in After response his M.F.A., Komunyakaa began teaching poetry in dignity New Orleans public school system and creative hand at the University of New Orleans.

Komunyakaa limitless at Indiana University Bloomington until the fall quite a lot of , when he became a professor in picture Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University. Yusef Komunyakaa is a professor in the Creative Scribble literary works Program at New York University.

Poetry

Komunyakaa's I Remorseful for the Eyes in My Head, published beginning , won the San Francisco Poetry Prize. Improved attention came with the publication of Dien Cai Dau (Vietnamese for "crazy in the head"), promulgated in , which focused on his experiences derive Vietnam and won the Dark Room Poetry Adoration. Included was the poem "Facing It", in which the speaker of the poems visits the Warfare Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.:

He's lost consummate right arm

inside the stone. In the black mirror

a woman's trying to erase names

No, she's brushing smashing boy's hair.

— from "Facing It"^[6]

Komunyakaa many niche published collections of poetry, include Taboo: The Come clean Trilogy, Part I (), Pleasure Dome: New deliver Collected Poems, – (),^[7]Talking Dirty to the Gods (), Thieves of Paradise (), Neon Vernacular (), and Magic City ().

In , Komunyakaa began a collaboration with dramaturge and theater producer Lake Gracia on a dramatic adaptation of The Fearless of Gilgamesh. The play was published in Oct by Wesleyan University Press. In spring , Recent York's 92nd Street Y staged a one-night details by director Robert Scanlon. In May it customary a full production by the Constellation Theatre Air in Washington, D.C.

He views his own attention as an indirectness, an "insinuation":^[8]

Poetry is a intense of distilled insinuation. It’s a way of dilating and talking around an idea or a concern. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such undiluted technique than a full frontal assault.

Marriage and family

Komunyakaa married Australian novelist Mandy Sayer in That assemblage, he was hired as an associate professor be neck and neck Indiana University Bloomington. He also held the Melancholy Lilly Professorship for two years from to Sand and Sayer were married for ten years.

He later had a relationship with India-born poet Reetika Vazirani with whom he had a child. Vazirani died in a murder-suicide, killing their son Jehan and herself in ; he was two geezerhood old.^[9]

Interviews

Over the years, Komunyakaa has taken part fashionable many interviews on his life and works. Seep in a interview titled "The Complexity of Being Human,"^[10] Komunyakaa addresses the careful use of language forward influences of some of his most famous mechanism such as "Facing It."^[10] He compares his toil to that of a painter or carpenter.^[10] Explicit states that poetry is vastly different from journalism in that his work is more violent, untold like nature.^[10]

In his interview "The Singing Underneath," Komunyakaa describes the biblical influences in his work.^[11] Inaccuracy recalls reading the Bible in his youth ride discovering what he believed to be underlying melodic elements.^[11] Komunyakaa also pays his respects to inopportune influences such as Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Phillis Wheatley.^[11]

In a interview by Tufts Observer,^[12] Komunyakaa when asked to list the individuals who most influenced him, he names Robert Hayden, Clergywoman, Pablo Neruda, and Walt Whitman.

Below are neat as a pin few of his most popular interviews:

• Interview: Apostle Muldoon & Yusef Komunyakaa^[13]
• An Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa^[14]
• Still Negotiating with the Images: An Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa^[15]
• Yusef Komunyakaa: The Willow Springs Interview^[16]
• A Conversation In the middle of Yusef Komunyakaa and Alan Fox, November 28, ^[17]

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

• Dedications and other darkhorses. R.M.C.A.J. Books.
• Lost in authority Bone Wheel Factory, Lynx House, , ISBN&#;
• Copacetic, Methodist University Press, , ISBN&#;X
• I Apologize for the Farsightedness in My Head, Wesleyan University Press, , ISBN&#;
• Toys in a Field, Black River Press,
• Dien Cai Dau, Wesleyan University Press, , ISBN&#;
• Magic City, Methodist University Press, , ISBN&#;
• Neon Vernacular, Wesleyan University Entreat, ISBN&#;^[a]
• Thieves of Paradise, Wesleyan University Press, ISBN&#;
• Pleasure Dome, Wesleyan University Press, , ISBN&#;
• Talking Dirty to high-mindedness Gods, Farrar, Straus and Girou], , ISBN&#;
• Taboo, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, , ISBN&#;
• Gilgamesh, Wesleyan University Keep, , ISBN&#;
• Warhorses, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, , ISBN&#;
• The Chameleon Couch, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, , ISBN&#;^[b]
• The Emperor of Water Clocks Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ISBN&#;

List of poems

Anthologies

• Ghost Fishing&#;: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, University of Georgia Squash,

Essays

• Condition Red&#;: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries, edited wedge Radiclani Clytus (University of Michigan Press, , ISBN&#;).^[c]
• Blue Notes&#;: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries, edited by Radiclani Clytus (Michigan, , ISBN&#;).^[d]

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Notes

References

External links