Long ago, a friend defined poetry for me as "the marriage of meaning and music." I remember the late Etheridge Knight bemoaning in one of his haiku poems that "making words swing . . . ain't no square poet's job." Over the years, I've heard a number of poets read poetry, mostly their own; only a handful, such as Amiri Baraka, with any kind of groove and insight.
Komunyakaa and his work were both unknown quantities when I heard him read at Boston University some years ago. Never forget it! His voice was resonant as a cello. His presence was serene, eloquent as burnished mahogany. His casual elegance reminded me of singer "Big Joe" Williams, who fronted Count Basie's band for so many years. Combine that majesty with the power and grace of his reading, the pulse and insight of his poems . . . He finished to a standing ovation, while I, practically doubled over and in tears, as if just kicked in the solar plexus (literally knocked out by the beauty and the passion of what I'd just witnessed) cried in awe and joy. His performance had touched me, as someone else I knew once said, "down here where the soul begins . . ."
What about his poetry moves me so much? His wordsmithing in a distinct blues & jazz-inflected voice. The visceral impact as he explores growing up in the segregated South, his relationship to his father and family and friends; the terror and inhumanity of war; the examination of human frailty and pain and the struggle to decipher and determine a place in this world. I love his sheer virtuosity in sculpting language and rending fresh, startling images: "The tongue labors,/ a victrola in the mad mouth-hole/ of 3 A.M. sorrow." "When days are strung together,/ the hourglass fills/ with worm's dirt." Or perhaps the summation of loneliness (the ultimate human condition) in my favorite of his poems, "The Heart's Graveyard Shift": "Between loves I could stand all day/ at a window watching honeysuckle open/ as I make love to the ghosts/ smuggled inside my head."
This is word music that thrills you . . .
Now about the book: I have been actively searching out Komunyakaa ever since I saw his poem, "Troubling the Waters." When I bought Neon Vernacular some years ago I put everything else away because Neon Vernacular was the only thing worth looking at for months. Now, I find myself reading "Songs for My Father" over and over. I even wroe a poem based upon "Starlight Scope Myopia" from Dien Cai Dau. Simply put, Yusef Komunyakaa is the one living writer I most want to meet with and talk poetry.