Yusef Komunyakaa

Facing It

I go down the 58,022 names half-expecting to find my own in letters like smoke.

Yusef Komunyakaa writes movingly about his Vietnam War experience in his poem “Facing It.” The “It” in Komunyakaa’s poem refers both to the war and the black granite of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The poet has won many honors for his writing including a Pulitzer Prize.

Komunyakaa was recorded reading this poem on a visit to Minnesota in 2011. Komunyakaa enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1969 and served during the Vietnam War as a war correspondent for the military newspaper, The Southern Cross. He earned a Bronze Star for his service.