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I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem.

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
Uncomfortable
Poet
Focus
Poem

More quotes by Yusef Komunyakaa

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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
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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
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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
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I think of language as our first music.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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Whoever said men hit harder when women are around, is right. Word for word, we beat the love out of each other.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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There's a sameness about American poetry that I don't think represents the whole people. It represents a poetry of the moment, a poetry of evasion, and I have problems with this. I believe poetry has always been political, long before poets had to deal with the page and white space . . . it's natural.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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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
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I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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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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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
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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
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I am this space my body believes in.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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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
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We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what we do.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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Tonight I feel the stars are out to use me for target practice.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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I said that love heals from inside.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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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
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Poetry is a process of getting back to the unconscious. Hence, I am always writing-even when I'm not facing the white space. I feel writers are like reservoirs of images. We take in what is around us.
Yusef Komunyakaa
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I think of my poems as personal and public at the same time. You could say they serve as psychological overlays. One fits on top of the other, and hopefully there's an ongoing evolution of clarity.
Yusef Komunyakaa