Yusef Komunyakaa

It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss.…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“Title: Blue Light Lounge Sutra For The Performance Poets At Harold Park Hotel the need gotta be so deep words can't answer…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“Foolhearted mindreader, help us see how the heart begs, how fangs of opprobrium possess our eyes.”

— Yusef Komunyakaa

I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader or listener should be able…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

Whoever said men hit harder when women are around, is right. Word for word, we beat the love out of each other.

— Yusef Komunyakaa

I think of language as our first music.

— Yusef Komunyakaa

I think of my poems as personal and public at the same time. You could say they serve as psychological overlays. One…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“In the old days, the general's ribbons / & medals rainbowed across his chest, / & if he were interrogating himself, /…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

Blue is the insides of something mysterious and lonely. I'd look at fish and birds, thinking the sky and water colored them.…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“The Way the Cards Fall " Why did you stay away so long? I’ve buried another husband, since I last saw you…

— 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…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“My doors enter from the sidestreet, my windows painted basement black, my mouth kisses the blues harp, my heart hides like notes…

— 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…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“We move like a platoon of silhouettes balancing sledge hammers on our heads, unaware our shadows have untied from us, wandered off…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“Now I have beaten a song back into you, rise and walk away like a panther.”

— Yusef Komunyakaa

I close my eyes and can see men drawing lines in the dust. America pushes through the membrane of mist and smoke,…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

“I ate mythology & dreamt' - Yusef Komunyakaa (Blackberries)”

— 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

There's a sameness about American poetry that I don't think represents the whole people. It represents a poetry of the moment, a…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws,…

— Yusef Komunyakaa

I knew life Began where I stood in the dark, Looking out into the light.

— 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…

— 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…

— Yusef Komunyakaa