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.