Blog 7 AZ

In his book of poems "Dien Cai Dau", Yusef Komunyakaa expresses vivid details and memories of the hardships that soldiers went through in the Vietnam War. He emphasizes some major themes in his poems like the girl back home, loss of one's innocence, and how soldiers deal with the reality and trasition of war and post war. He also provides us with an African American perspective which is important to remember when reading his work because during that time many African Americans were struggling with the Civil Rights movement back home. It is even harder for him to fight in the Vietnam War because he is fighting for a country that doesn't fully support him and all of his rights.

In the poem "Combat Pay for Jody", Komunyakaa explains how hard the transition was from home to war. He says that "it took closing a dead man's eyes to bring the war's real smell into my head". He also further emphasizes this rough transition by repeatedly talking about how much he misses and thinks about his girl back home. For example, "Her perfume still crawled in my brain", "her nude reflection", and "her lipstick mouthprints". He realizes that it is her that got him through every day and kept him up and fighting. "Her lies" of love at the bottom of every letter are what he needs to survive. When he returns to Phoenix he has a very hard time adjusting back to an average way of life. He doesn't know how to deal with himself. He says "I couldn't even face myself in the mirror". This line signifies how much the war completley changes the soldiers. It transforms them so much that they can't recognize who they are, they lose their identity and all sense of everything they live for.

In the poem "The One-legged Stool", Komunyakaa gives us a glimpse of how much strength and determination one needs in order to stay alive. He questions the idea of a hero when he calls out the Vietnamese guard keeping him a prisoner and says "Would you just drag me out into the compound, then put a bullet through my brains for nothing? Do you call that honor?". He then defends himself and states that the guard is lying. He stands up for his country and himself and declares "I'm American. Doctor King, he ain't dead like you say. Lies. How many times are you trying to kill me?...You can't break me." This quote shows how not only is he fighting for his life, but he is also fighting for and against his own country. He is defending the U.S. against Vietnam but at the same time he has to fight against all racism and hate that people have in the U.S. Towards the end he states that overal his main mission is to "try to keep alive".
Being in Vietnam he realizes how strong he really is and how much more of a battle he has up against himself in order to stay alive. For example he says to the Vietnamese guard "You eye me worse than those rednecks. They used to look at me in my uniform like I didn't belong in it.(Struts around in a circle) I am sharper than sharp". Finally after putting up a fight and defending himself he realizes that after all this hard work he has nothing to go back to, "All I have to go back to are faces just like yours at the door".

This idea of having nothing to return to after the war ties into his last poem of the book "Facing It". In this poem Komunyakaa deals with the reality of coming back home and visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He has a hard time holding his emotions together and adjusting. For example he says "I said I wouldn't dammit: No tears. I'm stone. I'm flesh". This is a very deep contrast from liquid tears, to solid stone, to human flesh. I think it symbolizes all the different types of feelings and memories that have taken control and are constantly running through his mind, soul and heart. He quotes that there are "58,022 names, half-expecting to find his own in letters like smoke". This shows how he feels as if part of him died in Vietnam along with everyone else.
After this thought, he starts to note common ordinary things like birds, skies, and planes in order to bring himself back to everyday life. But he is lost. He says "I'm a window". This kind of relates to his random flashback of the soldier who "lost his right arm inside the stone". His mind is like a window in that he can't control what he sees. Whatever goes by he is forced to revisit and look at. Towards the end of the poem he sees "In the black mirror a woman trying to erase names". This black mirror is the physical monument. It was meant to show an observers reflection in order to make them feel like they were involved in the war just as much as the soldiers names on the wall. I also think it is important to note that he mentions the woman trying to erase names. I think this is his way of saying that he wishes he could erase some of his memories or go back in time and save the lives of some of those soldiers.