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Yusef Komunyakaa Quotes


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Quotes by Yusef Komunyakaa

Showing 1-10 of 17 Quotes by Yusef Komunyakaa

My great-grandfather Melvin had been a carpenter - so was my father - and they taught me the value of tools: saws, hammers, chisels, files and rulers. It all dealt with conciseness and precision. It eliminated guesswork. One has to know his tools, so he doesn't work against himself.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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I define poetry as celebration and confrontation. When we witness something, are we responsible for what we witness? That's an on-going existential question. Perhaps we are and perhaps there's a kind of daring, a kind of necessary energetic questioning. Because often I say it's not what we know, it's what we can risk discovering.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can't aim guns and set booby traps for people we have never spoken a word to. That kind of impersonal violence mystifies me.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader or listener should be able to enter the poem as a participant. So I try to get past resolving poems.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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I originally wanted to embrace the imagery and forthrightness of rap music. There are some interesting, dynamic voices in rap. But I find most of it irresponsible in its overt violence and commercialization of anger. As artists, we believe we can will action through language. If that's the case, we have to take responsibility for what we say.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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I see many black males grasping for some thread of hope. There are so many destructive practices, glimpses into a psychic abyss. That must be very frightening.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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Poetry helps me understand who I am. It helps me understand the world around me. But above all, what poetry has taught me is the fact that I need to embrace mystery in order to be completely human.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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We have to embrace the good over the bad. That has to be one's personal project.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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It wasn't a deliberate decision to become a poet. It was something I found myself doing - and loving. Language became an addiction.

~Yusef Komunyakaa

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Biography

Nationality: American

Type: Poet

Born: April 29th, 1947

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