Facing It

Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It” describes a Vietnam War veteran’s painful experience of visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. In his poem I couldn’t help but be impressed by its vivid imagery. Reading the lines, Komunyakaa makes it so easy to envision what he describes. It makes me feel like I’m there. Through the use of vivid imagery, Yusef Komunyakaa shows the veterans’ response to the Vietnam War memorial by using both literal and figurative illustrations.

Literally and figuratively, Komunyakaa begins his poem with the image of the speaker “hiding inside the black granite” (2) of the Vietnam veterans’ memorial wall. This image gives the reader and the veteran the representation that he is almost one with the wall and can see himself emotionally inside it. The reflection causes a literal image of the speaker being “stone” (5), yet figuratively this shows the speakers desire to remain “stone” (5) against the potential effects of memories