Taboo: The Wishbone Trilogy, Part One; Poems

by Yusef Komunyakaa

The Paint-Box artists
color in Adam & Eve,
using every hue & cry

of temptation. Because God
blends into the darkness
the faces keep coming off.
--from "Chiaroscuro"

With the allusive leaps and improvisational chops of a jazz soloist, Yusef Komunyakaa is our great poet of connectivity--the secret blood that links slave and master, explorer and native, stranger and brother. In Taboo he examines the role of blacks in Western history, and how these roles are portrayed in art and literature. In taut, meticulously crafted three-line stanzas, Rubens paints his wife looking longingly at a black servant; Aphra Behn writes Oroonoko "as if she'd rehearsed it/for years in her spleen"; and in Monticello, Thomas Jefferson is "still at his neo-classical desk/musing, but we know his mind/is brushing aside abstractions/so his hands can touch flesh." Taboo is the powerful first book in a new trilogy by a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet whose work never ceases to challenge and delight his readers.

Genres: Poetry, African American

144 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable.

Favorites are as follows: Queen Marie-Therese & Nabo; King of the Octave; Antebellum Silhouettes; Satchmo, USA; The Archivist, Outside the Blue Nile.

Would recommend to others interested in Komunyakaa's work.

On a bit of a Komunyakaa kick.

[Mishehu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Every poem in this book is structured similarly, and written in the same register. From a purely aesthetic perspective, the effect (to this reader) was dulling. Add to that the numerous classical and other erudite references (I assume this collection qualifies as 'academic' poetry) and the result is book of poems almost perfectly designed to alienate all but 'serious' poetry readers. Acknowledging that my own brow wasn't high enough to meet the many challenges this collection posed, I'll say this: I neither found these poems pleasing to the ear nor, for the most part, edifying or inspiring. A few of them (isolated stanzas mostly), I did like (hence a second star). I mean no criticism of YK, who is an accomplished (and obviously very capable) poet. I offer my homely criticisms simply as a member of the reading public at large wo was largely left cold by the poems that comprise this collection.

[Lenora Good · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tad apprehensive when I bought this book, leery of a whole book in three-line stanzas, I quickly became enamored with the writing. I didn’t understand some of it, I felt like I’d been invited to a party, and my date left me standing with strangers and expected me to know who they were a time or two, but mostly I knew the other guests and I never felt alone.

These poems are different than the ones in Dien Cai Dau, the first of his books I purchased and read. Yusef Komunyakaa is a poet of many talents, and I look forward to reading more of his books.

This book is book one of The Wishbone Trilogy, what are the other two books? Are they written? Are they published?

[Jamie Yu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this! Would definitely read again.

[Martha Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my Transforming Visions: Image and Text module in first year in relation to ekphrastic texts on the topic of slavery.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kindness

When deeds splay before us
precious as gold & unused chances
stripped from the whine-bone,
we know the moment kindheartedness
walks in. Each praise be
echoes us back as the years uncount
themselves, eating salt. Though blood
first shaped us on the climbing wheel,
the human mind lit by the savanna's
ice star & thistle rose,
your knowing gaze enters a room
& opens the day,
saying we were made for fun.
Even the bedazzled brute knows
when sunlight falls through leaves
across honed knives on the table.
If we can see it push shadows
aside, growing closer, are we less
broken? A barometer, temperature
gauge, a ruler in minus fractions
& pedigrees, a thingmajig,
a probe with an all-seeing eye,
what do we need to measure
kindness, every unheld breath,
every unkind leapyear?
Sometimes a sober voice is enough
to calm the waters & drive away
the false witnesses, saying, Look,
here are the broken treaties Beauty
brought to us earthbound sentinels.

[Nicole Gervasio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Komunyakaa was another of my professors during my freshman year of college, and I'm ashamed to say this is still the only volume of his that I actually own. Taboo has many jazz inflections. The poems are gripping in their brevity, and their rhythm is impeccable with a sort of au naturale ability that seems intensely endemic to him and his work.

[A.T.Panezo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amazing, thought provoking poetry. But! I'm too ignorant to understand the constant references. The ones that I did know, were pleasant and rewarding like, Astraea's Footnotes, Queen Marie-Therese & Nabo and Lustration.I know that google can help with research but sometimes I have access to no internet service. So the immediate gratification that poetry gives is taken away from me this book.

[Moira · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book takes a lot of research to get through, but with Google at the ready it is certainly approachable. The short lines are beautiful and I love how he interweaves the past and present, and teaches me about jazz and art history along the way.

[ben adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book seems a little too high brow and abstract for me. A classicist may enjoy this. I liked it because I like everything by Komunyakaa, but this got a little out of hand. But still, it's better than 95% of all other poets. This is a 3-star for Komunyakaa, possibly a 4-star for everyone else.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intense jazz poetry. More allusions than I could follow and appreciate, but good stuff. I'd like to read his collection that won him a Pulitzer, Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems.

[Spencer · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is some really excellent stuff in here. I will definitely be reading more by Yusef Komunyakaa.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterful, like all of Komunyakaa's poetry. To be savored slowly.

[Sarita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Savage; inscrutable.

[Sam Mauro · Rating 3 out of 5]

60/100