Yusef Komunyakaa

Komunyakaa received the 2007 Louisiana Writer Award for his contribution to poetry. His subject matters include the Black experience, rural Southern life before the civil rights movement, and his experience as a soldier during the Vietnam War.

Yusef Komunyakaa studied at Colorado State University and University of Colorado Colorado Springs. The recorded working language is English. Employment is recorded with LSU New Orleans and New York University. Distinctions recorded are Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Bronze Star Medal, Shelley Memorial Award and Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award.

• Name — Yusef Komunyakaa • Birth Name — James William Brown • Born — 29 April 1941 • Birthplace — Bogalusa, Louisiana, U.S. • Education — University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (BA) Colorado State University (MA) University of California, Irvine (MFA) • Genre — Poetry • Notable Works — Facing It • Awards — Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; Zbigniew Herbert Award.

Komunyakaa was born in 1947 and given the name James William Brown Junior (although his former wife said in her memoir that he was born in 1941). He grew up in the small town of Bogalusa, Louisiana. As an adult, he reclaimed the name Komunyakaa, the name of his grandfather who had reached the United States as a stowaway in a ship from Trinidad. Komunyakaa served in the U.S. Army, serving one tour of duty in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. According to his former wife, Mandy Sayer, he was discharged on 14 December 1966. He worked as a specialist for the military paper Southern Cross, covering actions and stories, interviewing fellow soldiers, and publishing articles on Vietnamese history, which earned him a Bronze Star. He has since used these experiences as the source of his war poetry collections Toys in a Field (1986) and Dien Cai Dau (1988). Following his return to the United States, he found the American people's rejection of Vietnam veterans to be as painful as the racism he had experienced while growing up in the American South before the Civil Rights Movement.

After his service, he attended college at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, where he was an editor for and contributor to the campus arts and literature publication riverrun. He began to write poetry in 1973 and took the name Yusef Komunyakaa. He earned his M.A. in writing from Colorado State University in 1978, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, in 1980.

After receiving his M.F.A., Komunyakaa began teaching poetry in the New Orleans public school system and teaching creative writing at the University of New Orleans. In 1985, he was hired as an associate professor at Indiana University Bloomington. He also held the Ruth Lilly Professorship for two years from 1989 to 1990. Komunyakaa taught there through 1996. In the fall of 1997, he became a professor in the Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University. Yusef Komunyakaa is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at New York University.

• Illustration — Komunyakaa at the 2006 Brooklyn Book Festival. Komunyakaa's I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head, published in 1986, won the San Francisco Poetry Center Award. Dien Cai Dau, published in 1988, focused on his experiences in Vietnam and won the Dark Room Poetry Prize. His 1993 book Neon Vernacular won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Komunyakaa collaborated with dramaturge and theater producer Chad Gracia on a dramatic adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh, published in 2006 by Wesleyan University Press. In spring 2008, New York's 92nd Street Y staged a one-night reading directed by Robert Scanlon. In May 2013 it received a full production by the Constellation Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. His 2011 book The Chameleon Couch was a finalist for the 2012 International Griffin Poetry Prize.

Komunyakaa married Australian novelist Mandy Sayer in 1985. He and Sayer were married for ten years and have a daughter. Komunyakaa later had a relationship with India-born poet Reetika Vazirani, with whom he had a child. Vazirani died in a murder-suicide, killing their son Jehan and herself in 2003; he was two years old.

• Collections • Dedications and Other Darkhorses, R.M.C.A.J. Books, 1977 • Lost in the Bone Wheel Factory, Lynx House, 1979, • Copacetic, Wesleyan University Press, 1984, • I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head, Wesleyan University Press, 1986, • Toys in a Field, Black River Press, 1986 • Dien Cai Dau, Wesleyan University Press, 1988, • Magic City, Wesleyan University Press, 1992, • Neon Vernacular, Wesleyan University Press, 1993 • Thieves of Paradise, Wesleyan University Press, 1998 • Pleasure Dome, Wesleyan University Press, 2001, • Talking Dirty to the Gods, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001, • Taboo, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, • Gilgamesh, Wesleyan University Press, 2006, • Warhorses, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, • The Chameleon Couch, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011, • The Emperor of Water Clocks Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015 • List of poems • Title — |Year — |First published — |Reprinted • After Summer Fell Apart — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Blues Chant Hoodoo Revival — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Camouflaging the Chimera — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Confluence — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • English — 2011 — The Chameleon Couch • Envoy to Palestine — 2015 — The Emperor of Water Clocks • Facing It — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Fortress — 2014 • Ghazal, After Ferguson — 2015 — The Emperor of Water Clocks • Grunge — 2011 — The Chameleon Couch • Infidelity — 2001 — Talking Dirty to the Gods • Instructions for Building Straw Hut — 2015 — The Emperor of Water Clocks • Latitudes — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Lime — 2001 — Talking Dirty to the Gods • Moonshine — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Night Gigging — 2013 • Please — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Poetics — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Praise Be — 2015 — The Emperor of Water Clocks • Reflections — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Rock Me, Mercy — 2015 — The Emperor of Water Clocks • Slam, Dunk, & Hook — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Slingshot — 2016 • South Carolina Morning — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Toys in a Field — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Urban Renewal — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • We Never Know — 1988 — Dien Cai Dau • Yellow Dog Cafe — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Yellow Jackets — 2001 — Pleasure Dome • Anthologies • Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology, University of Georgia Press, 2018.

• Condition Red: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries, edited by Radiclani Clytus, University of Michigan Press, 2017, • Blue Notes: Essays, Interviews, and Commentaries, edited by Radiclani Clytus Michigan, 2000,