Facing It By Yusef Komunyakaa Summary

The Poem “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa is a poem about the memorial veterans and memory of the Vietnam War. The poem is about a black man visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This man served in the Vietnam War and he is lucky that he did not lie down like other soldiers. The poem’s purpose is to remind us about the Vietnam War and how sadness it is to experiencing the loss of our soldiers. To completely understand “Facing It,” It helps to examine the three elements theme, Tone, and symbol. The theme of “Facing It” is that Veterans who has served in any wars are still carrying sad emotions and memories with them and those memories will stick in their head until they die. In this poem, the black veteran man look at the granite wall that has over 58 thousand names on it and all of the sad memory come back to him like it just happens now. Survive during the war is what all soldiers want, but losing their battle buddy is a big loss to them. Many Veterans have gone through a depression after they’ve survived during the war. All the memories of

First, the speaker said that the red bird wings look like brushstrokes on the memorial as if it was painted. Wings are nice; it’s reference delightful and spirituality. Birds they fly into the sky, they go to the heaven, the way prayers can go into the heaven, a bird is a freedom it’s a more hopeful image. Then, in the reflection of the black mirror, he noticing the sky and he can see an airplane in the reflection and again, it represent the expands, the freedom of the sky. This is a broadening in the poem; it’s like we opening the lens wider. Finally, the speaker talks about the pale eyes of a white vet. Both white vet and black man match their eyes on the reflection, the black man sees the white vet lost his right arm, and its maybe because of the reflection of the stone that seem like he saw the white vet lost his right