Facing It
Akeem Barnes
Professor Fairey
Personal Criticism
5-12-13
Facing it
I stood nervously in front of my eighth grade English class praying that nobody would laugh at the poem I was about to read aloud. My peers were used to reading Langston Hughes, Edgar Allen Poe, or Maya Angelou, and I did not want to disappoint them by trying something new. The assignment given to our class was for everybody to choose a poem, read it aloud, and explain why it relates to them. How was I going to explain to a class filled with 13 and 14-year-olds that a poem about the Vietnam War was significant to me? I had no relatives that I knew about who went to war and I myself surely had never been to war. The thought of it didn’t even interest me, but I was eager to let the class know how I felt about this piece because I was attached to it. So attached—that I sometimes still ponder over what drew me to Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It,” in the first place. I was always the student who preferred to sit back, relax, and read R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, or Louis Sachar’s Holes, rather than figure out the complexities of somebody’s poem. Poetry to me was still just a flow of beautiful words that were used to lure readers, but I wanted stories. It didn’t take long for me to realize that poems were stories as well. Shortly after receiving my assignment, I was in my school’s library surfing the web for famous poems and stumbled across “Facing It.” At first I thought it’d be similar to the previous poems I had read, but this one was different. Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem is about his visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. During the visit, he is reflecting on his experiences as an editor for the military newspaper. At 13-years-old, I didn’t comprehend Yusef’s message about the wall reflecting his brutal war experiences. I didn’t understand that he was making a personal connection between the wall and himself. But I did know
Professor Fairey
Personal Criticism
5-12-13
Facing it
I stood nervously in front of my eighth grade English class praying that nobody would laugh at the poem I was about to read aloud. My peers were used to reading Langston Hughes, Edgar Allen Poe, or Maya Angelou, and I did not want to disappoint them by trying something new. The assignment given to our class was for everybody to choose a poem, read it aloud, and explain why it relates to them. How was I going to explain to a class filled with 13 and 14-year-olds that a poem about the Vietnam War was significant to me? I had no relatives that I knew about who went to war and I myself surely had never been to war. The thought of it didn’t even interest me, but I was eager to let the class know how I felt about this piece because I was attached to it. So attached—that I sometimes still ponder over what drew me to Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem “Facing It,” in the first place. I was always the student who preferred to sit back, relax, and read R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, or Louis Sachar’s Holes, rather than figure out the complexities of somebody’s poem. Poetry to me was still just a flow of beautiful words that were used to lure readers, but I wanted stories. It didn’t take long for me to realize that poems were stories as well. Shortly after receiving my assignment, I was in my school’s library surfing the web for famous poems and stumbled across “Facing It.” At first I thought it’d be similar to the previous poems I had read, but this one was different. Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem is about his visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, DC. During the visit, he is reflecting on his experiences as an editor for the military newspaper. At 13-years-old, I didn’t comprehend Yusef’s message about the wall reflecting his brutal war experiences. I didn’t understand that he was making a personal connection between the wall and himself. But I did know