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I knew life Began where I stood in the dark, Looking out into the light.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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Yusef Komunyakaa
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: April 29
Author
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Bogalusa
Louisiana
James William Brown
Jr
Life
Stood
Began
Knew
Looking
Dark
Hope
Light
More quotes by Yusef Komunyakaa
Through the years I have seen myself as a peaceful person, but the awareness of the anger is part of that process.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.
Yusef Komunyakaa
Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can't aim guns and set booby traps for people we have never spoken a word to. That kind of impersonal violence mystifies me.
Yusef Komunyakaa
It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way I had been systematically writing around it.
Yusef Komunyakaa
Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what we do.
Yusef Komunyakaa
Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone. The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the human voice and when Oliver plays with other sax players, it's like a dialogue.
Yusef Komunyakaa
It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I said that love heals from inside.
Yusef Komunyakaa
Cursing themselves in ragged dreamsfire has singed the edges of,they know a slow dying the fields have come to terms with.Shimmering fans work against the heat& smell of gunpowder, making moneyfloat from hand to hand. The next momenta rocket pushes a white fistthrough night sky, & they scatter like birds& fall into the shape their liveshave become.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I define poetry as celebration and confrontation. When we witness something, are we responsible for what we witness? That's an on-going existential question. Perhaps we are and perhaps there's a kind of daring, a kind of necessary energetic questioning. Because often I say it's not what we know, it's what we can risk discovering.
Yusef Komunyakaa
Poetry is a kind of distilled insinuation. It's a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full frontal assault.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I’ve been here before, dreaming myself backwards, among grappling hooks of light. True to the seasons, I’ve lived every word spoken. Did I walk into someone’s nightmare?
Yusef Komunyakaa
I am this space my body believes in.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I think of language as our first music.
Yusef Komunyakaa
We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.
Yusef Komunyakaa
My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws, hammers, chisels, files and rulers. It all dealt with conciseness and precision. It eliminated guesswork. One has to know his tools, so he doesn't work against himself.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I close my eyes and can see men drawing lines in the dust. America pushes through the membrane of mist and smoke, and I'm a small boy again in Bogalusa.
Yusef Komunyakaa
I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, have to be revisited, reimagined, so we can move through them.
Yusef Komunyakaa
