Yusef Komunyakaa: October 20, 1995
Yusef Komunyakaa (born 1941) is an American poet who teaches at New York University. He is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, and has written much about the life of Black people in the South. He himself grew in the rural community of Bogalusa, Louisiana. He childhood and youth experiences both before and after the civil rights movement. These experiences are expressed in his book, Magic City (1992). Known as one of his most significant works, it describes both KKK activity in the Old South and the rise of the civil rights movement in 1950s to 1960s.
In addition to his childhood experience, the war experience in Vietnam also influences the life and work of Komunyakaa. He served in the U.S. Army as a specialist for the military newspaper until 1966, and received a Bronze star for his service as a journalist in the Vietnam War. And yet, serving in South Vietnam, he strongly felt that the war was "crazy". Komunyakaa wrote Dien Cai Dau in 1988 based on this experience; the phrase “dien cai dau” literally means crazy in Vietnamese.
Komunyakaa worked as English and Afro-American studies professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, and also conducted poetry workshops and judged poetry competitions. After Dien Cai Dau and Magic City, he published Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems (1993). It is a compilation of his poems, including eighteen poems selected from Dien Cai Dau. In 1994, Neon Vernacular won both the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
On Friday, October 20, 1995, Komunyakaa visited Plattsburgh along with his Australian wife Mandy Sayer. This was the celebration event of Black Poetry Day in Plattsburgh, and he was invited to read his poetry as the main guest. He read his poems in the Recital Hall of Hawkins Hall. The event was reported on by both the Press-Republican and Cardinal Points. The writer of the Press-Republican article, Robin Caudell, interviewed him. In the interview, Komunyakaa talked about his attitude to creating poetry. He said, “I'm willing to discover other avenues, other methods. I want to be growing. I not only want to surprise my audience, but I want to surprise myself. I don't want to write about the same thing I already know. For me, it's a process, a discovery.”