Yusef Komunyakaa is an American poet born in 1941. He teaches at New York University. In 1994, he won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his Neon Vernacular. He also received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry that same year.
Komunyakaa finds the most inspiration from his experience growing up in the American South before the Civil Rights movement and his experiences during the Vietnam War. Read more of Yusef Komunyakaa’s Biography.
‘Facing It’ by Yusef Komunyakaa speaks of one man’s reaction to seeing the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, D.C.
‘Venus’-fly traps’ by Yusef Komunyakaa describes the life of a young boy, the secrets he hears and the worlds he creates as escape mechanisms.