In "Facing it" Yusef Komunyakaa is visiting the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial. We find him in the beginning of the poem to have quite a reluctance to “face it”. The author experiences an internal conflict that he thought he was prepared for, yet he finds himself at the mercy of his suddenly weakened state of mind. Yusef Komunyakaa feels that he blends into the black granite wall as if merging into another dimension. This dimension is filled with the atrocity of the war and the poet feels as if he is reliving his past “I touch the name Andrew Johnson;/ I see the booby trap's white flash.”
Very powerful feelings are conveyed to the reader through the choice of the author’s rhythm, it is as if we are inside his head and are seeing and feeling the same as he does “I said I wouldn't,/ dammit: No tears./ I'm stone. I'm flesh.”
This poem is an interesting insight into the mind of a war veteran how one might feel when exposed to an object that remind them of the horrific vents of their past. For instance, I do not consider that I am ignorant, however I personally barely feel anything at the War memorial. There was only once I felt something at a memorial wall I visited recently, and that required seeing a armor shell and the damage it left when it hit the ground. How much more traumatic and vivid this visit to memorial would be for a soldier that fought this battle?! However, I never appreciated the existence and never understood the purpose of war memorials until this poem! Thank you Yusef Komunyakaa!
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Yes, the poem questions, perhaps explodes (excuse pun) the idea of "memorials"--what they are, their place in our culture. The speaker's response to the memorial is complex. Note the ambiguity of imagery--some social commentary, here; the closing image of the child, vis a vis the momento mori of the memorial, is powerful.
ReplyDeleteI like the ambiguity that Komunyakaa creates between marble plate and reality, how every image he encounters takes him back and forth between the past and present. He thinks he sees a woman brushing her son's hair, but instead it looks like she is trying to erase names off the plate, as if it did not happen, as if they are alive. Yet he is not even sure if he is alive, he is looking for his own name on the granite plate...
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