Yusef Komunyakaa

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Yusef Komunyakaa

• Jay S.

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Yusef Komunyakaa (1947-)

• Born on April 29, 1947
• Born in Bogalusa, Louisiana
• He is the oldest of five children
• He used a lot of his childhood experiences to
  write about

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Poems/Stories Written By Komunyakaa

• Dien Cai Dau
• Neon Vernacular
• Thieves of Paradise
• Magic City

• Copacetic
• Lost in the Bonewheel Factory
• Other Darkhorses

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About Yusef Komunyakaa

• Yusef Komunyakaa served in the U.S Army from
  1968-1971
• At that time he was correspondent for the Army
  Newspaper The Southern Cross for one year
• He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in
  1994
• Now he is a teacher at Princeton University

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Elegy For Thelonious

• Damn the snow.Its senseless beautypours a
  hard lightthrough the hemlock.Thelonious is
  dead. Winterdrifts in the hourglassnotes pour
  from the brain cup.damn the alley catwailing a
  muted dirgeoff Lenox Ave.Thelonious is
  dead.Tonight's a lazy rhapsody of
  shadowsswaying to blue vertigo metaphysical
  funk.

• Black trees in the wind.Crepuscule with
  Nellieplays inside the bowed head."Dig the Man
  Ray of piano!"O Satisfaction,hot fingers blur
  on those white rib keys.Coming on the
  Hudson.Monk's Dream.The ghost of bebopfrom
  52nd Street,footprints in the snow.Damn
  February.Let's go to Minton's play "modern
  malice"till daybreak. Lord,there's
  Theloniouswearing that old funky hatpulled down
  over his eyes

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Bibliography

• www.ibiblio.org/ipa/komunyakaa/
• www.poets.org/academy/news/ykomu
• www.poemhunter.com/p/t/poet.asp?poet8714
• www.loc.gov/today/pr/2001/01-056.html