Yusef Komunyakaa Quotes

Yusef Komunyakaa
Yusef Komunyakaa
American Poet
Born: Apr 29, 1947
Around Language Me Myself Poet Years
Related authors: Edgar Allan Poe Emily Dickinson Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Maya Angelou Ralph Waldo Emerson Robert Frost T. S. Eliot Walt Whitman
Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can't aim guns and set booby traps for people we have never spoken a word to. That kind of impersonal violence mystifies me. Yusef Komunyakaa
Me People Word Aim Kind Guns Horror Impersonal Never Spoken Look Terror How Hearts Realize Vietnam Helped Traps Violence Set
We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project. Yusef Komunyakaa
Good Project Bad Embrace Over Personal
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 Komunyakaa
Try Past Believe Resolving Enter Able Poem Poems Abstract Tension Participant Like Reader Concrete Get Listener Should Connecting
It took me 14 years to write poems about Vietnam. I had never thought about writing about it, and in a way I had been systematically writing around it. Yusef Komunyakaa
Me Writing Thought Took Way Systematically About Poems Write Never Had Around Been Years Vietnam
I define poetry as celebration and confrontation. When we witness something, are we responsible for what we witness? That's an on-going existential question. Perhaps we are and perhaps there's a kind of daring, a kind of necessary energetic questioning. Because often I say it's not what we know, it's what we can risk discovering. Yusef Komunyakaa
Witness Define Say Kind Daring Responsible Something Risk Poetry Perhaps Know Because Discovering Existential Question Questioning Celebration Often Energetic Confrontation Necessary
I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening. Yusef Komunyakaa
Hope Psychic Black Abyss Destructive Must Thread See Some Practices Males Very Frightening Many Grasping
Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human. Yusef Komunyakaa
Me World Embrace Above Poetry Fact Mystery Around Understand Am Human Taught Order Who Helps Need
I excavate history. I look at lives buried under too much silence. Periods of time, like slavery, have to be revisited, reimagined, so we can move through them. Yusef Komunyakaa
Time Silence History Too Much Too Through Like Look Periods Move Buried Them Much Lives Slavery
My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws, hammers, chisels, files and rulers. It all dealt with conciseness and precision. It eliminated guesswork. One has to know his tools, so he doesn't work against himself. Yusef Komunyakaa
Work Me Father Value Tools Rulers Carpenter Had He Know Himself Great-Grandfather Dealt Been His Precision Taught Against Files Eliminated

No more Yusef Komunyakaa quotes

Haven't find the right quote? Try quotes from authors related to Yusef Komunyakaa.

About
Site pages
Top Quotes
Authors
Today's birthdays
Copyright © Quotesia 2024