Here is a video of Yusef Komunyakaa reciting his poem, Facing It, which is about the Vietnam Memorial. I think that this is such a powerful poem.
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears.
I’m stone. I’m flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way–the stone lets me go.
I turn that way–I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet’s image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I’m a window.
He’s lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.
I am extremely impressed with the imagery in this poem. The author does an exceptional job of creating the dark and painful mood that a veteran might feel when facing the wall. I love the image of the main character turning in different directions as the wall appears to release him and take him back in. It is a fantastic metaphor about the character never truly being able to escape the war. I must also praise the image of the names written on a woman’s blouse, but when she walks away they remain on the wall. This could signify many things, but I like to think of it as the person that the woman lost to the war remains as close to her as her own shirt, but when it comes down to it, he is still dead, just a name on a wall forever– a person lost to an infinitely long, dark cause.
Nicole said
Ah! We read this in my creative writing class this semester. Such an amazing poem.