Henry Reed and Yusef Komunyakaa on War

Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It” is an excellent companion to the Henry Reed war poems discussed here Sept. 6 and 8.  Here are all three poems:

Facing It by Yusef Komunyakaa : The Poetry Foundation

"Judging Distances" by Henry Reed

"Naming of Parts" by Henry Reed

In the literal, primary, temporal moment of "Facing It," the speaker is a black Vietnam vet standing at the Vietnam Veterans’ memorial wall in Washington, D.C.  But his images morph as he becomes more and more involved in the names and memories he sees etched in stone. The mind of Komunyakaa’s speaker slides in and out of past and present settings, in and out of reality, whatever that might be--there are mirages.

This shape-shifting forces us out of the comfort of our own selves, out of our of linear rationality, and into the consciousness of the speaker. We experience his psyche as it absorbs scenes and images, without clear, neat transitions. Staying tuned to that channel, or mix of channels, might require at least a second reading, but of course that’s true of any poem that’s worth much. 
 

In each of Henry Reed’s poems, there are actual changes of speakers, without clear notation by word or punctuation; but I think most readers will see what’s going on if they give it a second, slower effort. Even though the young speakers are not presently under fire, Reed’s two recruits are stunned, dazed, and more or less brutalized by the mechanization in military thinking. 

Both of Reed’s poems present training for war as the enemy of beauty, sensitivity, sensuousness, love, and a sense of belonging. Flowers, bees, and human sexuality are presented as the opposites of war—and they are war’s victims, before a shot is ever fired. The drill sergeant’s instructions might be clear; they might even seem rational compared to the recruit’s daydreaming. But the sergeants' words are also as cold and hard as the machinery they describe.

Similarly, Komunyakaa’s speaker is adrift, mesmerized by the surreal contrast between a cold, stone monument and the human flesh, the life stories, the monument tries to honor. So it’s fitting that we readers are dragged into the speaker’s daze if we are to move even an inch toward understanding his experience with the monument. Komunyakaa makes us participate in a state of mind that is perhaps beyond our capacity for empathy. 

 

The three poems present complex psychological situations, so it makes sense that confusion might be part of our reading experience. Preparing for or participating in combat, or trying to make sense of a connection between actual war and a stone memorial—those are complex experiences that we should hope to understand as much as any bystander can.