Formatting and Yusef Komunyakaa

Facing It, Yusef Komunyakaa

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
looking through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

I thought since I was doing a poetry project on him I would post one of his poems on my blog. This particularly, gives the best images in my my opinion. Very vivid and it makes you reminisce about how maybe you had a relative that went to war. I did, he exploded. But that's all in the past. What I am really excited about, is that tomorrow I am going to call New York University. Why may you ask? Yusef Komunyakaa works there as a Creative Writing professor! I was wishing I could try and interview him, but I am not holding my hopes too high. I mean, he is a famous poet so my chances are slim. But maybe if I say I am a majoring in Creative Writing in a high school performing arts program, maybe they will let me chat. Books that I would highly recommend reading by him are, Neon Vernacular, Taboo, and Warhorses. I have read through these, looking for a poem to annotate and so far none of them have been appropriate for class. Haha I know, however it's not that he uses an excess of profanity, rather he uses little. My class would have a riot if I used a poem with profanity in it and since they tease me already I don't want to encourage them.
Now you are probably wondering: why do you have the word formatting in your title? Because if you even try to format your copied poems on here it fails. This makes me very angry, because every time I try and fix E. E. Cummings' poems on here to make it look like how he meant it to, auto-blogger kills it. White space is what I need and it kills my white space. Darnnn youuu blooggeerr. Anyways, I will blog if I do get a hold of him and post what questions I asked him and stuff and tell you all about the details! I myself will squeal and convulse if I do get a hold of him.
Anyways, tonight I must go to bed early so I will leave it at here and continue this praise of Komunyakaa another time.

Goodnight everyone~!

.:K_a_t_h_r_y_n:.