Reflecting the Light: Yusef Komunyakaa – the Vietnam War Poems

“You’ve tested this a thousand times
you can’t look at the page – newspaper, novel, poem
and miss the words Viet Nam.
It might as well be neon.”

~excerpt from “Pool” by D. F. Brown (qt.. in Williams 158).

The main thing
you must remember
is the jungle
has retaken the trenches think on it forgiven,
look on it healed
as a scar.

~”L’eclatante victoire de Khe Sanh” by D. F. Brown” (qt.. in Williams 156).

The legacy left by the Vietnam war is one that will not go unnoticed by future generations, although, as D. F. Brown suggests, the wounds of the war will heal. Unlike the trenches, however, the human element does not mend so easily. Trenches can be refilled and made level again, the thick green foliage of Vietnam’s jungles probably covered such war sites with the growth of one summer. The lives of the Vietnamese and American soldiers, though, are of a very different nature. If we were to say, today, that the wounds of the war are healed, there would be no denying that we would also have to recognize that deep wounds leave scars and scars are permanent.

The “Nam” experience left its mark on the lives of millions of people, for many, that mark was fatal, for the rest, it remains unforgettable. This rule finds no exception in the literature produced during and after the war. For some, like Robert Bly, writing was a way to protest during the war, for others, like Michael Casey, it was a release immediately after the war experience, and for others still, like Yusef Komunyakaa, writing became a tool by which to reflect, forgive, and heal some time after the war experience. It is the poetry of the last, of the one who let the memories and images settle for a good while before putting them on paper, that I wish to examine.

Yusef Komunyakaa, aside from the name, is not an unusual man. He was born and raised in Bogalusa, Louisiana. He joined the army in the same year that Ho Chi Minh died, that the term “vietnamization” was invented by Secretary of Defense, Melvin Laird and the same year that the Mylai massacre of the year before was revealed for what it really was (Karnow, 682). He joined in 1969 at age 19 as an information specialist and edited The Southern Cross military newsletter from the front lines of the war (Weber C11). If anything made him and/or his experience exceptional, it was his journalist’s eye for detail, the fact that he was always taking notes. He published Dien Cai Dau, which translates as Vietnamese slang for “crazy,” in 1988 (Nguyen). In reading the poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa, it is important to take note that his poems about Vietnam were published almost two decades after his tour of duty and that not one of his three books prior to Dien Cai Dau mentions the war. In an interview, Komunyakaa said, “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” (qt. by Weber). But the fact that the book is titled with a Vietnamese phrase is evidence itself of the lasting affects of the war experience. In many cases, remembrance of war is not easily dealt with; when memories do surface they can be hard to control. Komunyakaa described how it felt to write his first war poem, ” . . .it was like I had uncapped some hidden place in me. Poem after poem came spilling out” (qt. by Weber). There is no question that the feelings, emotions, and memories of a veteran are important, but the accountability of the facts presented in such personal work lends itself to be unreliable once it is placed in the hands of a person’s perspective. Often times, however, an individual’s interpretation can be remarkably close to the truth, close enough to complement one another.

In many ways, Komunyakaa’s collection of poems details the mental terrain of the Vietnam-soldier. The first poem, “Camouflaging the Chimera” (Appendix 1), opens the reader to a place where the men in uniform transform into something monster-like in order to weave themselves into the terrain. The attempt to become part of their landscape which , in turn, consistently fights again them, does little good in a battle against natives that are familiar with the land. This fundamental difference between degrees of fighting agility, a reason for many casualties, is shown through the comparison of those who tied branches to their heads and those who move through the terrain like black silk (the Viet Cong). Learning to survive in unfamiliar terrain is crucial for survival in battle. The theme of displacement runs through Dien Cai Dau. In the poem “Somewhere Near Phu Bai,” even the title indicates the feeling of being lost. The speaker of the poem, a soldier, views the night sky over the combat zone as foreign and threatening, the moon “cuts through / night trees like a circular saw” and stars take on an unnatural, overpowering and cold form, “hundreds of blue-steel stars/ cut a path” (Komunyakaa 7). Strange surroundings worked to multiply the dangers of the war for the American soldiers, and often lead to their experiencing cognitive dissonance.

Feeling dislocated in a new world can put a strain on clear thinking, but soldiers are trained to survive and to destroy an enemy. Part of the training that prepares a man to deal with the killing of another is the act of dehumanizing the enemy. Make the enemy non-human and killing will be easier. Komunyakaa hints towards his practice of this theory. In many of the poems, Vietnamese are referred to as shadows and ghosts. In “Starlight Scope Myopia,” the locals are “Gray-blue shadows” and the words they speak too far in the distance to hear are “ghost talk” (Komunyakaa 8-9). But dehumanization only works so well, the reality of killing comes back to Komunyakaa even through his denial. “The Dead at Quang Tri” (Appendix 2) expresses post battle sorrow that stems from counting dead bodies which Komunyakaa says are “harder than counting stones,” stones being non-human objects (12). There is a sense of denial in the poem and a wanting for a dead child the live again, “He won’t stay dead, dammit!” along with a conclusion that implies defeat “the grass we walk on / won’t stay down” (12). “The Dead at Quang Tri” gives the reader a look at the psychological struggles of war.

The American in “Nam” knew the enemy by name only “Viet Cong,” there was no clearly drawn line to distinguish friend from foe. And sometimes, even ones own comrade was a danger to the platoon. This brings up two frightening issues: fragging and sappers. Komunyakaa wrote about both.

Fragging is a practice that is not much talked about by the military, no one wants to admit that an American soldier can be killed, purposefully, by other American soldiers. But it happens and, perhaps, it prevents more deaths that could have been caused by the mistakes of the victim. In “Fragging” (Appendix 3), a group of men draw straws to determine which will do the killing. They are surrounded by smoke and mist that acts as a “halo,” a holy shroud, as if they were saviors by committing this act of murder. The man they intend to frag is “too gung ho” and not a “real man” because he has, in the past, already made fatal mistakes. This explodes in a horrifying vision that is also beautiful and freeing. As the grenade terminates, ” Everything breaks for green cover, like a hundred red birds released from a wooden box” (16). The result, perhaps, is that many men, now, are liberated from a danger from within, a fellow solider, and have one less chaotic threat.

Another disordered threat to the American soldiers, besides that there were many hours of boredom spliced by short encounters of terror, was sappers. Sappers were communist sympathizers and were often women. Komunyakaa writes about the confusion this caused in “Sappers” (Appendix 4). There is a mental divide expressed in the poem that is caused by the duel desire to love and kill the women. This confusion of emotions results with the image of a highly sexual and extremely deadly image: naked, greased, and strapped with explosives. Sappers are characteristic of guerrilla warfare, and fragging is a practice of almost any war as well. Ã?¨

There are certain things that span the universal combat experience. Some things that infantry men see are indescribable. Such is the case in the poem, “You and I Are Disappearing” (Appendix 5). Here, the sight of a burning girl surpasses the narrators ability to describe it. In an interview with Vince F. Gotera, Komunyakaa stated that “language is what can liberate or imprison the human psyche” (383). The speaker of this poem, as he goes through a list of similes that can’t do the scene justice and finally ends with a contradicting biblical simile, “is simultaneously liberated and imprisoned. . . as he grapples with a view that is both unimaginably beautiful and incredibly horrible” (Gotera 383). Unfortunately, though, the burning girl will be consumed by the fire unlike the burning bush. The ambiguity here is in the title which suggests that with every sight such as this one the viewers is also burning away.

There are very many moral ambiguities in any war, whether stemming from fragging, sappers or through the nature of the soldier’s task itself. In the poem “We Never Know” (Appendix 6) there is the implication that the rest of the title is “who we kill.” In this scene, which is very much like the trench scene in “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the soldier spies a photograph in the hand of a dead enemy, again there is a halo around the dead, and the soldier performs an act of respect that serves also as an act of grievance (Cramer 102). Although this particular poem could have been a scene from just about any war, there is a “visual murkiness” in many of the poems that help to reinforce “the Vietnam veteran’s particularly anguished knowledge of this war’s moral ambiguities” (Cramer 102).

In the Vietnam war, where 58, 135 American soldiers were killed and 110,000 veterans died from “war-related” problems (including 60,000 suicides) and not counting the wounded, paralyzed or missing in action figures, there is an amazing bout with grief and thankfulness felt by the survivors (Williams 8). “Night Muse” and “Thanks” (Appendixes 7 & 8) are depictions of the gratefulness felt by the living poet. Both are accounts that seem to have little explanation rather than fate. Luck, in many cases, kept men alive. What I think Komunyakaa was expressing here is an acknowledgment that his life was spared by chance, and that he, just as easily as others, could have been a name on the wall.

The last two poems in the collection depict two different ways of dealing with the postwar trauma. “Between Days” (Appendix 9) is about a mother who does not accept the death of her son, in fact, she believes he will return. This is a sad story about not being able to face the realities of death and war.

The last poem “Facing it” (Appendix 10) is Komunyakaa’s personal interpretation of living with the Vietnam war experience. “This poem is literally a reflection about reflections; it is a ‘facing’ of the dualities that govern everyday life; there and here, America and Vietnam, living and dead, night and day, old and young, white and black” (Gotera 299). In theory then, the Vietnam Veterans memorial, has done exactly what it was designed to do. The designer of the wall, Maya Lin, described her reasoning for black marble, “I wanted something that would be soft on the eyes and turn into a mirror if you polished it. The point is to see yourself reflected in the names” (qt. in Williams 272). The memorial does more than just mirror its onlookers, it provides a formal recognition of the country’s losses. It gives the the veterans permission to morn for those they lost and for what they lost in themselves as well.

According to R. S. Gwynn, ” the beautiful ‘Facing It’ is the most poignant elegy that has been written about the Vietnam war” (741). Perhaps it is the last image of the poem that creates such an intense feeling in the reader. The picture is a women describe as “trying to erase names,” rubbing the wall, stroking an engraved name with such gentleness as if ” brushing a boys hair” (Komunyakaa 63). This poem is so powerful that it comes close to evoking the tears and feelings of grief felt by the narrator. This multilevel poem allows the reader to look through the eyes of the narrator who is seeing his experience in the wall’s reflection. Because this poem captures so many levels of grievance, it is truly a masterpiece.

With an amazing turn of words, Komunyakaa serves the reader well. He places the trail and crucibles of war into terms that are, if not manageable, at least accessible to the common public. He has taken great care to be truthful in the spirit of his stories whether the characters are fact or fiction. His Vietnam poems “rank with the best on that subject” according to The Dictionary of Literary Biography (ed. Lamar Gwynn 178). But Komunyakaa’s writing does more than present one man’s story, it opens up pathways for other veterans. “Komunyakaa’s achievement points to the possibility and actuality of self-renewal and solace in poetry by Vietnam veterans” (Gotera 299). If this is true, if, in fact, as Komunyakaa suggests, one can be freed from the stains of the war experience by and through language, then their is great importance to be found in letting the vets feel free to talk with out shame. But this opportunity to heal can not be taken advantage of if the veterans are forced to turn their words to blank walls. It is imperative, then, that we listen.

Cramer, Steve. “A review of Dien Cai Dau” in Poetry, Vol. CLVI, No. 2, May, 1990, pp.102-105.

Gotera, Vince F. “Depending on the Light: Yusef Komunyakaa’s Dien Cai Dau,” in America Rediscovered: Critical Essays on Literature and Film of the Vietnam War, edited by Owen Gilman and Lorrie Smith, Garland Publishing, 1990, pp. 282-300.

Gwynn, Lamar. ed., Dictionary of Literary Biography. Third series, Vol. 120. Detroit : Gale Research, 1992, pp. 178-179.

Gwynn, R.S. “What the Center Holds” in The Hudson Review, Vol. XXLVI, No. 4, Winter, 1994, pp.741-50.

Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History. New York: The Viking Press, 1983.

Komunyakaa, Yusef. Dien Cai Dau. New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press, 1988.

Nguyen, Sinh-hoa. NTC’s Vietnames ~ English Dictionary. Illinois: NTC Publishing Group, 1995.

Weber, Erik. “A Poet’s Values: It’s the Words over the Man,” in The New York Times, May 2, 1994, pp. C11-C18.

Williams, Reese. Unwinding the Vietnam War: From War into Peace. Seattle: The Real Comet Press, 1987.