Poetry Analysis

Crossing A City Highway

Title-

I predict that this poem will be about someone or something crossing 
a city highway and its adventure while crossing.

Paraphrase-

1. The city at 3 a.m. is an ungodly mask

the approaching day hides behind

& from, the coyote nosing forth,

the muscles of something ahead,

It is 3 a.m and the author is describing the city. The next day is coming 
quickly.The coyote is coming forth and sees something.

2. & a fiery blaze of eighteen-wheelers

zoom out of the curved night trees,

along the rim of absolute chance.

A question hangs in the oily air.

The eighteen-wheeler trucks are traveling along the highway passing 
the trees. There is only one question.

3. She knows he will follow her scent

left in the poisoned grass & buzz

of chainsaws, if he can unweave

a circle of traps around the subdivision.

It's a habit for coyotes to use their scent to find something or to get back
 to where they came from. The author describes the grass as poisoned. 
She is now in a neighborhood.

4. For a breathy moment, she stops

on the world’s edge, & then quick as that

masters the stars & again slips the noose

& darts straight between sedans & SUVs.

For a minute she stops. Then after that she starts back on her journey 
on the highway between trucks and cars.

5. Don’t try to hide from her kind of blues

or the dead nomads who walked trails

now paved by wanderlust, an epoch

somewhere between tamed & wild.

Don’t hide. Wanderlust- need to travel. Epoch- a period in history.

6. If it were Monday instead of Sunday

the outcome may be different,

but she’s now in Central Park

searching for a Seneca village

The outcomes portrays the day of the week. The coyote is now in Central 
Park searching.

7. among painted stones & shrubs,

where she’s never been, & lucky

she hasn’t forgotten how to jig

& kill her way home.

The author expresses the scenery that the coyote is new to. Even though
he has taken this journey, she does not forget where she comes from.

Connotation-

In the second stanza, the author uses the word fiery blaze in a positive 
and meaningful way. He is describing the eighteen wheelers as powerful. 
The author also uses the word poisoned in stanza 2 in a negative way 
describe the air outside. He uses the word wanderlust in stanza 5 in a 
positive way to elaborate on the “journey” the coyote is having; where 
she has a strong desire to travel.

Attitude-

The author is making the coyote very assertive; very strong willed. The 
author’s attitude is very awestruck as he speaks on the journey the 
coyote takes.

Shifts-

The first shift in the poem would be from the first stanza to the second. 
The author’s choice in the use of the words “fiery blaze” shifts the poem 
from metrical and lyrical to a very expressive tone. The last shift would 
be from the sixth to the seventh stanza. The author still has the 
expressive and relaxed tone in the sixth. In the seventh stanza, he 
switches form that to relaxed and calm and symbolic.

Title- Poetics

Poetics was a good title for this poem. It doesn’t talk about any poetry, 
but what the author does is uses poetics. He has metrical and lyrical 
aspects, expressive details, and the poem is symbolic. Yusef 
Komunyakaa used this poem to be elegiac , not to tell a story.

Theme-

I feel that this poem is about your journey and at the end of your 
journey finding your way home.

Quote

Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall

Poetry Magazine has called YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA "one of our period's most significance and individual voices," and indeed has he dazzled readers and garnered critical acclaim for decades. Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, at the start of the Civil Rights Movement, he creates poems rich with history and storytelling, suffused with the rhythms of jazz and blues. Komunyakaa's work relies on both intense emotional logic and creative improvisation, aiming always for the surprise note, that entryway into the secret universe of each poem. Author of seventeen books, with the Pulitzer Prize, the Wallace Stevens Award, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize among his many honors, he is currently Distinguished Senior Poet in New York University's graduate creative writing program.

Yusef vs. Art

Poetry Analysis

Blue Light Lounge Sutra:

This poem/song was the last on the album “Love Notes From The Madhouse by John Tchicai and Yusef Komunyakaa. Komunyakaa’s voice moves effortlessly among the other instruments, speaking it's solo alongside the bass, the percussion, and the expressive trumpet of Gonzalez.

Title- 

This title makes the poem seem like it is about music.  Whenever the word lounge is mentioned, usually music is played in there. Yusef is a poet who uses jazz rhythms and music in his work to give it livelihood.  This poem seems that like it could possibly have jazz rhythms in it along with jazz music.  This poem would speak about what would be going on in this blue lounge.

Paraphrase-  

1. the need gotta be

so deep words can't

answer simple questions

He is saying that whatever need you have, you can’t not have a reason why you need that. You have to show that you need it, not that you want it. The need has to be strong, as well as your explanation for the need. The need has to be so strong that when you explain the need, people will be speechless. You have to need to write poetry.

2. all night long notes

stumble off the tongue

All night, the notes of the song he is making comes across his tongue. All night notes are just coming to his head from the blue.  All night he bumps into notes from his head onto his tongue.

3. & color the air indigo

so deep fragments of gut

& flesh cling to the song

When he says color the air indigo, he means that the smell of the air is like the color indigo. As he speaks his poems, they bring a natural smell.

4. you gotta get into it

so deep salt crystallizes on eyelashes

You can’t just make the poem rhyme . He is saying that you have to really get deep into the poem. You have to make someone think about what you are trying to say. You have to get so deep that your audience is speechless.

5. the need gotta be

so deep you can vomit up ghosts

& not feel broken

You have to need to write poetry in order to write poetry. Poetry will only be great if the need for it is great. Yusef is putting emphasis on the need to write poetry.

6. till you are no more

than a half ounce of gold

in painful brightness

You have to put your all into your writing. Your need for writing poetry has so be extremely strong. No matter what it takes, how far it takes you, and what you have become after you have finished.

7. you gotta get into it

blow that saxophone

Poetry is very serious to just rhyme. You have to be extra with it. You have to put extra emphasis on what you are trying to say. You have to do the most. You have to be dramatic.

8. so deep all the sex & dope in this world

can't erase your need

to howl against the sky

You have to put your all into your writing.  No matter how long it takes, your need has to be that strong to overcome time. You can’t give up, no matter what comes your way in the process to make you frustrated.

9. the need gotta be

so deep you can't

just wiggle your hips

& rise up out of it

The need for writing has to be strong. If it isn’t strong then you are writing for no reason. It has to be so strong to where you can’t just give up because you want to. You have to need to want.

10. chaos in the cosmos

modern man in the pepperpot

Your need has to be strong enough that it won't phase you when people might write bad things about it. It has to be so strong that when you see the bad things, you keep on writing.

11. you gotta get hooked

into every hungry groove

The need for writing his to be so strong that you are loving what you are doing. It has to be so strong that you don’t want to stop until you are finished. Strong enough to where you don’t ever want to give up; like you are attached to your writing. You have to fall in love with your writing.

12. so deep the bomb locked

in rust opens like a fist

Yusef is being very dramatic on how deep your need for writing has to be. It has to be so deep that it could take forever. It has to be so deep that you are willing to take forever.

13. into it into it so deep

rhythm is pre-memory

You have to get extremely deep into your writing. You have to be very dramatic. You have to use all types of figurative language and symbolism that your audience is speechless.  It has to be so deep that after a while, you will know what to say. You would have fallen in love and this is a natural thing to you now.

14. the need gotta be basic

animal need to see

& know the terror

Your need for writing has to be extraordinary. You need to see what mistakes you can make, and what can come from those mistakes. You need to spot those mistakes so you can change them. You need to know what is going on so you can prepare for it.

15. we are made of honey

cause if you wanna dance

this boogie be ready

to let the devil use your head

for a drum                    

He is saying that we are all sweet in our own way. But if you want to dance, or play, you should be ready to battle. You are powerful, and you have come very prepared to win.

Connotation-

Yusef Komunyakaa uses the words need and deep in stanza 1 in a positive way.  He uses parallelism for these words to elaborate how serious music and poetry is to him. Yusef uses emphasis throughout the whole poem to elaborate the “need” and how “deep” you need to be. He is saying that your need for poetry has to be very serious and deep. Yusef uses the word stumble in a positive way. He uses the word stumble in stanza 2 as if the music just comes to him. Yusef uses the word broken in stanza 5 in a negative way. He uses anaphora to create a rhythmic pattern. There is order through his logic. In stanza 4, Yusef uses images to portray the amount of need and deepness you have to have for your music. He uses the word pepperpot in stanza 10 in a negative way. Pepperpot is when a person shares opinions or ways that are stronger than the extant social power might predict. Yusef uses the word hooked, in stanza 11in a positive way to explain that your need has to be strong enough where you are willing to stay on your writing for however long it takes.

Attitude-

In the beginning of the poem, Yusef Komunyakaa’s tone starts off very determined. His tone is also very dramatic. Throughout the whole poem, he is very determined to dramatically share what he means by need and deep.

Shifts-

In the beginning of the poem, Yusef is very determined. He starts to get dramatic in stanza 5 when he says  “the need gotta be so deep you can vomit up ghosts & not feel broken”. He gets even more dramatic when he says the words “so deep”. These words put emphasis on how deep he wants you to get, and how deep he wants you to understand.

Title- Blue Light Lounge Sutra

This title is explaining a composition which burns with a brilliant blue flame. The word sutra means a rule or aphorism in Sanskrit literature or a group of aphoristic doctrinal summaries prepared for memorization. Throughout the whole poem Yusef is explaining this rule that you have to have a deep need for writing poetry.

Theme-

This poem teaches that you have to show that you need to write music and poetry, not that you want it. The need has to be strong, as well as your explanation for the need. The need has to be so strong that when you explain the need, people will be speechless. You have to need to write poetry. You have to make someone think about what you are trying to say. You have to put your all into your writing. Your need for writing poetry has so be extremely strong. No matter what it takes, how far it takes you, and what you have become after you have finished.  It has to be so strong that you don’t want to stop until you are finished. Strong enough to where you don’t ever want to give up; like you are attached to your writing. You have to fall in love with your writing. You have to be so deep to where people have to look up the meaning of what you are trying to symbolize.

Autobiography on Yusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa was born as James Willie Brown Jr.; named after his father, James Willie Brown.  He was born April 29, 1947 in Bogalusa, Louisiana, which was a segregated mill town.  During this time was the Civil Rights Movement.  Around this time African Americans needed a way to express themselves and jazz poetry was a great way for them to.  Jazz poetry was brought up into the 1920s prolonged into the 1950s.  But back then, jazz poetry did not mimic the sounds of jazz today.  Poets would assimilate the use of syncopated rhythms and repetitive phrases of blues and jazz music in their poems.  That explains why Yusef uses jazz rhythms in his poems, not only was he very interested in it, but because jazz poetry was a big thing around this time.  His grandfather helped him as well, he says, "He was a stowaway, I suppose. And the story was that he was wearing one boy's shoe and one girl's shoe." Learning About Tools.  "He taught me to learn the tools, that tools make a job easier, and I see that as paralleling the technique of poetry," says Yusef.

Yusef Komunyakaa changed his name from James Willie Brown Jr. in tribute to his grandfather from the West Indies, and for religious reasons.  Yusef  first discovered the art of poetry when he was a child in elementary school.  His father was an illiterate man, but because Yusef stayed reading the books that his mother purchased for him, he did not turn out like his father.  He discovered his sense of rhythm by listening to jazz and blues on the radio.  After he completed his years in high school, Yusef enlisted into the U.S Army.  He was in the army from 1969-1970.  He served as an correspondent and then later he served as an editor for The Southern Cross, which was a military newspaper.  For Yusef’s great service in the army, he earned a Bronze Star.  After Yusef returned from the Army, he decided that he wanted to go back to school.  So what he did was attended the University of Colorado.

Most of Komunyakaa’s poems are very personal.  Many of his poems talk about his past such as his childhood, his time in Vietnam, and his hard times in life.  He wants his audience and his fans to get personal with him.  He wants them to understand exactly what he is trying to say in his poems.  He says, "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."  He says that he sometimes wishes that he was a painter because the symbols and images that his poems speak, come from his head.  He says: I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader or listener should be able to enter the poem as a participant. So I try to get past resolving poems."  Yusef has many poems. A list of them include: The African Burial Ground, Anger, Blues Chant Hoodoo Revivals, Confluence, Crossing a City Highway, Envoy to Palestine, Envy, Facing It, From Autobiography of My Alter Ego, Gluttony, Grunge, Infidelity, Islands, Kindness, Limes, Lust, Memory of the Murdered Professors at the Jagiellonian, Moonshine, Omens, Please, Poetics, Prize, Rock Me Mercy, Slam Dunk and Hook, Sloth, The Song Thief, Togetherness, We Never Know, and Yellow Jackets. He has many more poems that have not been stated, but all have been very successful.

Yusef has written many books over the years as well.  A list of them include: Lost in the Bonewheel Factory (1979), Copacetic (1984), I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), Dien Cai Dau (1988), Magic City (1992), Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems (1993), Thieves of Paradise (1998), Blue Notes (2000), Talking Dirty to the Gods (2000), Pleasure Dome (2001), Scandalize My Name: Selected Poems (2002), Taboo (2004), Gilgamesh (2006), Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa (2010), The Chameleon Couch: Poems (2011) and Condition Red Essays, Interviews and Commentaries (2017).  Those aren’t all of his books listed but just as his poems were successful; his books were as well.

Yusef was nominated and had received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for one of his books which was Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems (1994).  He says "I'm happier talking about the process of writing, yes. I'm even happier to have people read my work, I'm uncomfortable with the focus on the poet and not on the poem."  You could tell Yusef was a shy man by the way he would acknowledge his fans and supporters.  He would acknowledge them as if he were ashamed or embarrassed.  He also won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for the same book.  Other awards he has won was the Wallace Stevens Award, The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the William Faulkner Prize, The Thomas Forcade Award, and the Hanes Poetry Prize.

Yusef Komunyakaa is a very successful man.  In 1995 to 2005 he has served Chancellor of the Academy of Poets.  He taught at Princeton University as a Professor in the Council of Humanities and the Creative Writing Program.  He has also taught at the University of New Orleans and Indiana University.  Yusef is currently living nicely in New York City unbothered.  He is married to an Australian writer named Mandy Jane Sayer and is serving in the New York University's Graduate Creative Writing Program as a Distinguished Senior Poet.

Cited Works:

• “Yusef Komunyakaa.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/yusef-komunyakaa.

• “Mina Loy.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, 17 Oct. 2016, www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/yusef-komunyakaa.

• “Komunyakaa, Yusef (1947-).” The Black Past: Remembered and Reclaimed, BlackPast.org, www.blackpast.org/aah/komunyakaa-yusef-1947.

• “Jazz Poetry.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Aug. 2017, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_poetry.

• Blumberg, Naomi. “Yusef Komunyakaa.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 30 Nov. 2016, www.britannica.com/biography/Yusef-Komunyakaa.

• Weber, Bruce. “A Poet's Values: It's the Words Over the Man.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 May 1994,  www.nytimes.com/1994/05/02/books/a-poet-s-values-it-s-the-words-over-the-man.html?pagewanted=all&mcubz=1.

• Google Search, Google, www.google.com/search?q=books%2Bwritten%2Bby%2Byusef%2Bkomunyakaa&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8.