Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems

by Yusef Komunyakaa

An award-winning poet's testimony of the war in Vietnam.

Genres: Poetry, War, African American, History, Classics, 20th Century, Adult

188 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

Yusef Komunyakaa (born April 29, 1947) is an American poet who teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Komunyakaa received the 2007 Louisiana Writer Award for his enduring contribution to the poetry world.

His subject matter ranges from the black general experience through rural Southern life before the Civil Rights time period and his experience as a soldier during the Vietnam War.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry "reconnects us to the act of dreaming ourselves into existence," Komunyakaa once wrote. Once you pause a minute to consider the pain that has served as an outline in this poet's life, and when you also consider the highfalutin awards and professorial prestige given to a man whom people still seem to refer to as a humble man and teacher interested in mentoring poets, you really see this statement for what it truly means. Dreams not only allow one to escape reality if needed, but they could also serve as tools for reshaping a life stolen or misplaced.

The man nor the prestigious awards matter to me as much as I care about how his words make me feel on a silvery gray night when clouds threaten to clamp my conscious mind and take me back to that war zone, a journey that most will never understand, because they've never been. I care about how these words bring me back to a present whose past threatens to mar all that is good, confusing reality with flashbacks of trauma, where the now is all distorted and unreal, the past is reality, and the future beckons ecstatically from around a corner, pleading that you look forward and only consider "Safe Subjects:"

Say something that resuscitates
us, behind the masks,
as we stumble off into neon nights
to loveless beds & a second skin
of loneliness. Something political as dust
& earthworms at work in the temple
of greed & mildew, where bowed lamps
cast down shadows like blueprints of graves.
Say something for us who can't believe
in the creed of nightshade.
Yes, say something to us dreamers
who decode the message of dirt
between ancient floorboards
as black widow spiders
lay translucent eggs
in the skull of a dead mole
under a dogwood in full bloom.

However, subjects are not always safe when you are a war survivor, or, as is Komunyakaa's testimony, when you are a veteran. I may not have lived around the gun like he did, but I heard and felt it. We all, victims and victors of war, carry bloodstains with us, treading life carefully around the ghosts following us daily, cooing their guilt to those who dared survive, reminding us of what the world has forgotten. Komunyakaa toys with an apt description in "Fever," my favorite poem: Some nights I lie/Awake, staring into a promised land./A cold wind out of Wyoming/works the mind, like waves/Against stone, sand & willpower.

Bring out the flashlights and probe for the truth cloaked in invisibility, for despite trying to mold a life into what seems deceptively "normal," things are just as he says in "1984," "we sleepwalk among black roses:"

We're stargazers, weirdos,
prestidigitators in bluesy
bedrooms, on private trips
to the moon. The end of what?
We lock our hearts
into idle, not sure
of this world or the next.

Some days, our beast & the burden lock-step waltz.

I read these words for the truth they reveal, their suggestiveness, the imagery and music. Just as they did in Dien Cai Dau, his words slowly and soothingly won me over with rhythmic notes and subtleties. I read along, enticed by the caress of love-filled words, the hum of melancholia, and the poetic ambiguity that stems from a mind rife with memories that taunt. Somewhere in these lines, every soul sufferer finds solace and meaning because Komunyakaa has a way of making the ugly beautiful, of finding answers to the most complex questions. Somewhere within each verse, he has assurance for me, and with the creation of each stanza, the creation of his academic and creative trajectory, he has inspired me.

Excerpted from: "After Summer Fell Apart:"

I can't touch you.
His face always returns;
we exchange long looks
in each bad dream
& what I see, my God.
Honey, sweetheart,
I hold you against me
but nothing works.
Two boats moored,
rocking between nowhere
& nowhere.
A bone inside me whispers
maybe tonight,
but I keep thinking
about the two men wrestling nude
in Lawrence's Women in Love.
I can't get past
reels of breath unwinding.
He has you. Now
he doesn't. He has you
again. Now he doesn't.

My review of Dien Cai Dau=> https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

My introduction to Yusef Komunyakaa: Neon Vernacular is a sampling of his works from several collections. Gorgeous, raw, powerful language. There were times when I couldn't process the meaning of what I was reading, I simply let the words pour over and through and around me, like an abstract painting that pounds with colors and lines and textures.

I discovered the best way to experience Komunyakaa's poetry was to read it aloud- as is the case with most poetry. But his in particular contains such resonant rhythms, unexpected riffs, jolts of symbol and song-the emotions reveal themselves when the voice lends tone to the print.

In the time
It takes to turn & watch a woman
Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off
The clothesline, to see her sun-lit
Dress ride up peasant legs
Like the last image of mercy, three
Are drinking from the Mason jar. '
~Moonshine

"My hands are like sparrows, stars
caught in a tangled dance of branches.
He raises my clothes.
An undertow drags me down.
His mouth on mind, kissing my mother.
-Stepfather: A Girl's Song


into our stone water jars
this song isn't red flowers
crushed under silence.

Have we earned the right to forget, forgive ropes for holding to moonstruck branches?

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I never said thanks for Butch,
The wooden dog you pulled by a string.
It was ugly as a baldheaded doll.
Patched with wire & carpenter's glue, something
I didn't believe you had ever loved.
I am sorry for breaking it in half.
I never meant to make you go
Stand under the falling snowflakes
With your head bowed on Christmas
Day. I couldn't look at Butch
& see that your grandmother Julia,
The old slave woman who beat you
As if that's all she knew, had put love
Into it when she carved the dog from oak.

from "Songs for My Father"

Yusef Komunyakaa's Pulitzer-winning collection Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, like such collections tend to be, is a mixed bag. Komunyakaa's journey as a poet has cut a wide swath of territory, and not all of it is worth revisiting. His dalliances with surrealism and absurdity (much of his verse culled from his collections Dedications & Other Darkhorses and Lost in the Bonewheel Factory) as well as his jazz-inflected odes to bebop (much of his verse from February in Sydney) wear thin quickly. I particularly liked the verse collected from Copacetic, which reins in these poetic tendencies and yields some fascinating imagery and insight.

At the other end of the spectrum is poetry culled from his two poetry collections detailing his time as a soldier in Vietnam: Toys in a Field and the more substantive Dien Cai Dau. Komunyakaa's poetry is tight here, but he has a tendency to promote stereotypes pulled from such films as Apocalypse Now more frequently than individualized reflections. Again, as with this overall collection, it's a mixed bag.

In the end, I'm glad I took in this collection but I doubt if I will be returning to his well often. Komunyakaa is a fascinating poet summoning a wide range of ghosts, but, for me, he continually reinvents himself to sing in a new key, in a new direction. I'm looking for a bedrock to his verse which, in this collection, is missing.

Thanks

Thanks for the tree
between me & a sniper's bullet.
I don't know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman's wild colors,
causing some dark bird's love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writhing on a single thread
tied to a farmer's gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I'm still
falling through its silence.
I don't know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
& moved only when I moved.

[Christina Olivares · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary. Here is the treat of "Anodyne" -- below, & you can hear Komunyakaa read here if you like: http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/poems/komu....

Anodyne

I love how it swells
into a temple where it is
held prisoner, where the god
of blame resides. I love
slopes & peaks, the secret
paths that make me selfish.
I love my crooked feet
shaped by vanity & work
shoes made to outlast
belief. The hardness
coupling milk it can't
fashion. I love the lips,
salt & honeycomb on the tongue.
The hair holding off rain
& snow. The white moons
on my fingernails. I love
how everything begs
blood into song & prayer
inside an egg. A ghost
hums through my bones
like Pan's midnight flute
shaping internal laws
beside a troubled river.
I love this body
made to weather the storm
in the brain, raised
out of the deep smell
of fish & water hyacinth,
out of rapture & the first
regret. I love my big hands.
I love it clear down to the soft
quick motor of each breath,
the liver's ten kinds of desire
& the kidney's lust for sugar.
This skin, this sac of dung
& joy, this spleen floating
like a compass needle inside
nighttime, always divining
West Africa's dusty horizon.
I love the birthmark
posed like a fighting cock
on my right shoulder blade.
I love this body, this
solo & ragtime jubilee
behind the left nipple,
because I know I was born
to wear out at least
one hundred angels.

[John Boyack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Believe this, brother,
we're dice in a hard time hustle.
- p. 73

I never said there's a book inside
every tree. I never said I know how
the legless beggar feels when
the memory of his toes itch.
-p. 54

Sweet Mercy, I worship
the curvature of your ass.
- p. 74

Unnatural State of the Unicorn

Introduce me first as a man.
Don't mention superficial laurels
the dead heap upon the living.
I am a man. Cut me & I bleed.
Before embossed limited editions,
before fat artichoke hearts marinated
in rich sauce & served with imported wines,
before antics & Agnus Dei,
before the stars in your eyes
mean birth sign or Impression,
I am a man. I've scuffled
in mudholes, broken teeth in a grinning skull
like the moon behind bars. I've done it all
to be known as myself. No titles.
I have principles. I won't speak
on the unnatural state of the unicorn
in literature or self-analysis.
I have no birthright to prove,
no insignia, no secret
password, no fleur-de-lis.
My initials aren't on a branding iron.
I'm standing here in unpolished
shoes & faded jeans, sweating
my manly sweat. Inside my skin,
loving you, I am this space
my body believes in.
-p. 87

[Christina M Rau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yusef Komunyakaa has two types of poetry. One type is talky, conversational, and story-like. The other is lyrical, imagery-filled, and layered. I like the latter more. He shows off his unique sense of the world through those. His poems about military life also offer a view into a world many do not know; however, I'm not a fan of that kind of poetry. I do appreciate activist poetry, but the poems about army life are not enticing for me. Still, he weaves them in a seemingly effortless manner, which only means that he most likely spends hours and hours finding the right memory and the right word to produce it. Neon Vernacular is filled with new and old poems in an interesting order that swings between the two extremes of his patterns. The words and lines remain fresh through to the end.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's the language, the ease of it all. It pops like Jazz, unexpectedly, or maybe less like jazz and more like cooking a pan of homemade fries on the stove. Its the texture of the book itself.

I can't remember the title of the poem (it might've been the title piece), but the poem co-existed side by side with another poem, telling the same story in dual columns, where the lines would meet, and occasionally make sense, or sometimes not. But it wouldn't be gibberish, it just didn't make immediate sense.

Anyway, I liked it.

[hh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Komunyakaa does what is hardest to do as a poet, capturing live music and war on the page. I was fortunate enough to have an opportunity to hear him read not long after I started the book, which certainly colored how I read it. The things I appreciate most about Komunyakaa's work are his ability to seamlessly utilize a variety of registers, vernaculars, and dictions; his eye for people and personalities; and his ability to evoke a depth of emotion with great economy.

[Jason Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn’t know what to expect with Komunyakaa, but he is basically a master of every aspect of poetry. I won’t list them out, but if you can think of something you like about a good poem, he can do it, and pretty much doesn’t take a break.
There are plenty of times I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I always like the way he’s saying it - a rare thing that the legions of newer poets obviously inspired by his work usually fail to achieve (just check out Poetry magazine to see that Komunyakaa has many admirers but few real disciples).
The difference is that he writes music. A nonsensical image or metaphor goes down easy if it sounds like a surprising reharmonization or a turnaround in the melody. But the actual words and phrases are music. I say music and not musical because a poem like “Blue Light Lounge Sutra for the Performance Poets at Harold Park Hotel” could be notated and performed (think slam poetry without all the gesticulation that stands in for chops, or better, a good preacher like Coronel West’s cadence and dynamics).
All to say, there’s much to return to and learn from here on the craft level alone, leaving aside the world(s) of thematic richness in these poems.

[Taylor Franson-Thiel · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s hard to review books that are so obviously amazing that it’s like a waste of time but this book is well worth the Pulitzer it won. Brilliant!!!!! The hype is earned!!!

[Yona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Describing Neon Vernacular as a singular volume is difficult for me not only because it's a mishmash of several of his books of poetry but also because I read it in small portions over a long period of time. To be honest, I don't think I remember or even understand all of it. I need to do a second read through. However--this is the important part--I do want to read it again, and I did enjoy reading it. That's what really matters about a literary work, isn't it?

I love Komunyakaa's juxtapositions most, I think. Although he speaks to many specific issues that I know very little about--the Vietnam war, growing up black in America, cheating and being cheated on--he speaks with a certain universality that I think is necessary for all poetry. When he talks about shame, man, I get it. And he makes it beautiful.

I think Komunyakaa has been one of the strongest influences on my poetic voice lately, and I'm sure he will continue to be. He's worth checking out!

[Harry Palacio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neon Vernacular is a prose war poetry collection that has a dark luminosity to it- a weaving of almost two distinct cultures, each borrowing from the next as though strange passenger- Yusef Komunyakaa is an award winning author/ poet- the television effusions; summon the pubis of more harrowing times, such as the Vietnam War, a book steeped in meditation, travail and phantom- we are questioning the prognosis of what death answers us in the deep recess of memory recall.

[Mia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite poetry books. Raw and sensual. Hot and cool. Mixed words that come out as absolute atmosphere and feeling. This book was my handbook in university..I learned by osmosis to write poetry and even fiction from Mr. Komunyakaa's writing. I learned to be bold like I wanted to be. Excellent...never goes out of fashion.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful collection. Komunyakaa surprises me--wows me!--again and again with the inventiveness of his language and the rawness of the emotional material he confronts. The Viet Nam sequence in the second half is particularly noteworthy, but this book is tremendous at every turn.

[Cheyenne · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite book of poems in the existence of books of poems.

[Lucas Sierra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Después de la muerte (Comentario, 2022)

Me gusta preguntarme si hay vida después de la muerte. No me refiero a si hay vida después de morir. Sino después de la muerte. Es decir, después de estar en presencia de la muerte, después de sentir la muerte, y verla, y olerla. Después de habitar junto a la muerte. ¿Hay vida después de la muerte? Las cifras de suicidios de excombatientes entrega una respuesta desalentadora. La poesía de Yusef Komunyakaa, en su extrañeza, devuelve algo de esperanza.

Porque este poemario recoge poemas que dan una respuesta afirmativa. Komunyakaa participó en la guerra de Vietnam. Perdió en la guerra de Vietnam. Al volver a Estados Unidos tuvo que preguntarse si era posible la vida después de la muerte. Respondió escribiendo. Respondió creando poemas en los que su abuela habla con Jesús y le dice que ahora puede morir, pues su nieto ha regresado a salvo. Respondió creando poemas donde su padre llora al ver destruido el juguete hecho de basura que le legó como herencia. Respondió creando poemas donde el Viet Cong reparte volantes clandestinos preguntando si acaso eran ellos, los vietnamitas, quienes habían matado al doctor Martin Luther King.

Komunkayaa escribe para demostrar que la vida sigue, que la vida existe. Incluso después del napalm y la infamia. La vida existe. Y podemos leerla.

[Diann Blakely]

"I am this space/my body believes in," ends "The Unnatural State of the Unicorn," the first poem in Yusef Komunyakaa 's 1986 volume, I APOLOGIZE FOR THE EYES IN MY HEAD (Wesleyan). That the body itself, apart from mind or soul, can possess beliefs--or memories or hopes or regrets or revelations--comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with Komunyakaa's work, or to anyone discovering this poet for the first time through NEON VERNACULAR, which includes rich samplings from books now out of print. The tense, often colloquial language of Komunyakaa's tautly lineated poems in this volume and in his newest, MAGIC CITY, enacts on the page the muscle and movement of the human body as it walks, talks, makes love,
sings the blues, even kills. Indeed, not since Berryman has an American poet developed and then used a relatively standardized style to such effect. Short lines, short sentences, fragments, and the ampersand appear in Komunyakaa's earliest work as well as in his most recent. These technical
devices are exploited with increasing skill in poems whose subjects range from lyric meditations on love and jazz to Komunyakaa's experiences in Vietnam to his boyhood in Louisiana.

The short-lined poem, a staple of the Deep Image movement, has seemed stale and tiresome in recent years, as too often it has been shaped by poets who equate the line with a unit of syntax. While this lineation may have once appeared interesting in Stanley Kunitz's THE LAYERS (OP) or the earlier work of his protegée Louise Gluck, too often it creates a rhythmic portentousness. Komunyakaa mostly avoids this pitfall, in part because of his sensitive and well~tuned ear, in part because he knows that a short line as well as a long one should possess both content and integrity.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of Komunyakaa's development is how his unique sense of line and rhythm, though deriyed from his deep understanding of jazz, suddenly comes into focus when he addresses not the subject of music--"Villon/Leadbelly," "Copacetic Mingus," "Elegy for Thelonius"--but war. TOYS IN A FIELD, published in1986 by Black River Press, and DIEN CAI DAU, issued more widely in 1988 by Wesleyan, mark the beginning of Komunyakaa's most compelling work, both volumes resulting from the poet's tour of duty in Vietnam. At first it might appear
strange that such material would sharpen and focus the accomplishments of LOST IN THE BONEWHEEL FACTORY (OP, 1979), COPACETIC (Wesleyan, 1984), and the aforementioned I APOLOGIZE FOR THE EYES IN MY HEAD, Southeast Asia and the horrors enacted there being very far removed from the world of bayous and crawfish and Big Mama Thornton and hoodoo--and lynchings, or the ever-present fear thereof. Or maybe not so far removed. For the steamy jungles of Vietnam must have seemed like the humid Louisiana landscape of Komunyakaa's childhood become nighnnarish. "Camouflaging the Chimera" exemplifies both the terrifyingly phantasmagoric quality of the poems in these two collections and Komunyakaa's characteristic style at its most finely tuned and wrought.

... Chameleons
crawled our spines, changing from day
to night: green to gold,
gold to black. But we waited
till the moon touched metal,
till something almost broke
inside us. VC struggled
with the hillside, like black silk

wrestling iron through grass.
We weren't there. The river ran
through our bones. Small animals took refuge
against our bodies; we held our breath,
ready to spring the L-shaped
ambush, as a world revolved
under each man's eyelid.

A return to an earlier world is the most obvious connecting thread between the poems in MAGIC CITY and the "New Poems" of NEON VERNACULAR. Though Komunyakaa's childhood memories of Bogalusa are scarred by savage racism in poems like "The Whistle," "The Steel Plate," and "History Lesson," a deep but unsentimental love of place and family invests these recent poems with a new and expansive warmth, at times even gentleness. The modulation of tone leads him to experiment with a child~like narrative voice reminiscent of Elizabeth Bishop in MAGIC CITY's opener, "Venus Flytraps," and with longer, sectioned poems as well. The virtuosic "Changes; or Reveries at a Window Overlooking a Country Road, with Two Women Talking Blues in the Kitchen," a double-columned piece that counterpoints two women's gossip about local love and loss and betrayal with a meditation on jazz and poetry, is a stunning achievement; no less impressive in its own way is "Birds on a Powerline," which ends with the words of
Komunyakaa's grandmother after his rerum from Vietnam: "Jesus, I promised you. Now/He's home safe, I'm ready. / My traveling shoes on. My teeth/ In. I got on clean underwear."

The phrase "poet's poet" is overused and probably not terribly helpful to general readers who sample a book or two of poetry each year, staring dazedly at publications such as this one and trying to decide what's really worth their while--and their 10 bucks. An immersion in Yusef
Komunyakaa's poetry and its exactingly crafted restraint is powerful persuasion against the hyperbole that has become, unfortunately, the language of the reviewer's tribe; thus, attempting to take this poet's graceful and searing reserve as example seems the most fitting tribute in a review
of his two first-rate collections.

(originally published in THE BLOOMSBURY REVIEW)

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a lot to take in. The poems in the collection are from a period of almost 20 years, and the poet's style goes through some significant changes. After reading Neon Vernacular, I want to check out "I Apologize for the Eyes in my Head" and Dien Cai Dau." Honestly, I could do with a re-read of the earlier material--it's less easily accessible and requires some time to sink in to the brain.

He incorporates dialogue well into fairly short poems--multiple voices alternating without being off-putting. Really helps convey the atmosphere of home and conversation.

The poems about Vietnam are powerful and terrifying. They are more direct and less left-field than the other material: the subject matter is horrifying enough to speak for itself.

The thorn merchant sequence, from "I Apologize for the Eyes in my Head," is really eye-catching and strange.

Jazz is a frequently-repeated theme throughout the book, both the music and the musicians, and Komunyakaa incorporates it well. "Damn the snow. / Its senseless beauty / pours a hard light / through the hemlock. / Thelonious is dead. Winter / drifts in the hourglass" ("Elegy for Thelonious" v. 1-6).

"Sweet Mercy, I worship / the curvature of your ass. / I build an alter in my head. / I kiss your breasts & forget my name" ("Woman, I Got the Blues v. 11-14).

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vivid, vital poems with a jazz beat.

Personal favourite:

Unnatural State of the Unicorn
Introduce me first as a man.
Don't mention superficial laurels
the dead heap up on the living.
I am a man. Cut me & I bleed.
Before embossed limited editions,
before fat artichoke hearts marinated
in rich sauce & served with imported wines,
before antics & and Agnus Dei,
before the stars in your eyes
mean birth sign or Impression,
I am a man. I've scuffled
in mudholes, broken teeth in a grinning skull
like the moon behind bars. I've done it all
to be known as myself. No titles.
I have principles. I won't speak
on the natural state of the unicorn
in literature or self-analysis.
I have no birthright to prove,
no insignia, no secret
password, no fleur-de-lis.
My initials aren't on a branding iron.
I'm standing here in unpolished
shoes & faded jeans, sweating
my manly sweat. Inside my skin,
loving you, I am this space
my body believes in.

--from I Apologize for the Eyes in my Head

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

p.3 The whole town smells/ like the world's oldest anger. Fog Galleon
p.87 I've done it all/ to be known to be known as myself. Unnatural State of the Unicorn

The work an impressive collection of poems. When the author is at his best, images and bursts of color infuse the poems. The scattered, strong images create interesting scenes and stories. Included within the collection is "Facing It," which is a fantastic poem featuring the Veitnam Veterans War Memorial. Most of the highly charged material centers around the author's involvement in the Veitnam War; for our purposes, it will not be referred to a as a conflict. Within the collection there is an interesting poem featuring Jack Johson: "Boxing Day;" it was a pleasant surprise. "Camouflaging the Chimera," "Thanks," "Songs for My Father" are a few of the poems which stand out within the collection.

[Phil Overeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit of one of the many great ones (my favorites are on music, war, and physicality):

From CHAIR GALLOWS

Beating wind with a stick.
Riding herd in the human spirit.

It's how a man slips his head into a noose
& watches the easy weight of gods pull down

on his legs....

But I know war criminals
live longer than men lost between railroad tracks

& crossroad blues, with twelve strings
two days out of hock....

[Candy Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favorite book of poetry. I am blown away by his imagery and voice, haunted by some of these poems. This book never fails to leave me reeling. It's kind of fun to read it on the train, because I start talking to myself, saying things like "whoa" and "damn."

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unfuckwithable. Dien Cau Dau is probably my favorite book of poetry ever, but all the stuff in this collection afterwards is excellent as well. He only gets sort of flabby and incomprehensible after Neon (the stuff in "Pleasure Dome" isn't an improvement, it's just kind of a distraction). See him live if you can.

[Trey Rogge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Komunyakaa is not only one of today's strongest jazz poets, but one of the most powerful living poets in general. His stanzas on jazz come alive as if Thelonious Monk was still breathing, and his writings on Vietnam carry a lasting poignancy similar to Malick's 'The Thin Red Line'. Solid collection.

[Sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

still not sure how i feel about his poetry. He has some really beautiful imagery, but sometimes i think his verse is overwrought and over-done. I'm not sure how one person sees fit to make the same social commentary over and over again.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

It wouldn't be fair to rate this. I've read about 2/3rds of it, have felt incredibly moved by a majority of what I've read, but need to 1) finish the book and 2) re-read it cover to cover before I can rate it. However, this is clearly a masterpiece.

[pennyg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Beautiful, powerful, lyrical, poignant. The finest Combination of beauty and strength, each poem encapsulating a compelling little world of its own that I wanted to know more about. Loved it and will read more.

[Eveline Chao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yusef was my professor and he's amazing. I think I like his war stuff best. I'm not that into jazz poetry.

[Care]

committing to this for the 2011 Fearless Poetry Challenge http://savvyverseandwit.com/2010/12/2...

[Danielle Isbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some glittering moments and exhibits clear mastery of building a world through images. As a collection, felt repetitive at times and thematically underwhelming.