Yusaf Komunyakaa's Poem Facing It

In Yusaf Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It”, we are presented with a man, possibly the author himself, as the speaker. He is clearly a Vietnam War veteran and he is facing the wall of the 58,000 fallen American soldiers. We are able to conclude that he is a veteran, coming to pay tribute to his fellow soldiers, because he specifically mentions “I said I wouldn’t, dammit: No Tears” (Komunyakaa 2-4). The poem is made up of short, but precise and specifically chosen sentences that all help to paint a vivid picture of this man’s painful visit to the monument. The speaker uses concrete images to put us, his audience, directly there with him through phrases like, “My stone. I’m flesh” (Kominyakaa 5) and “My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite” (1-2). This presents a …show more content…
The speaker mentions that he half expects to find his own name “in letters like smoke” (16) among the list of dead men. The speaker runs his fingers along the names and as he stops at a particular one powerful images, almost premonitions of the past, come to his mind. He sees “a woman’s blouse” (19) within the black granite, “a booby trap’s white flash” (18), “a red bird’s wings” (22-23), and “the sky” (24). Through the speaker’s use of this wonderful imagery the colors and images penetrate our minds as they do his. These images are snap shots of the bloody war and of the man’s life. The speaker also feels it necessary to mention that this particular vet is white and the flashes and images continue to come to the speaker’s mind we see that the white vet not only has lost his right arm, but has left a wife and child behind as the speaker state, “In the black mirror a woman’s trying to erase names: No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair” (29-31). This is a tragic image, yet it is also poignant. The idea that the woman might be trying to erase names suggests that they may not be dead; as if their name’s on the wall are a