Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa

Jacket Description/Flap: Over two decades of interviews with the first African American male author to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetryMarc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.; Avail. in paper. Table of Contents: Introduction -- Chronology -- Interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Yusef Komunyakaa / Rudolph Lewis -- Radio Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa / David Houghtaling -- Conversation with Yusef Komunyakaa / Rebekah Presson -- Hotbeds and Crossing over Poetic Traditions / Kristin Naca -- Terror Aligned with Beauty: A Visit with Bloomington's Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet / David R. Richards -- The Body Is Our First Music / Tony Barnstone, Michael Garabedian -- Yusef Komunyakaa / Toi Derricotte -- Survival Masks: An Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa / Sascha Feinstein -- Discovering the Landscape with Yusef Komunyakaa / Elizabeth Cho -- Still Negotiating with the Images: An Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa / William Baer -- Achieving Clarity through Contrasts: An Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa / Shirley A. James Hanshaw -- Yusef Komunyakaa and Paul Muldoon / Suzan Sherman -- An Interview with Yusef Komunyakaa / E. Ethelbert Miller, Zoe Anglesey -- Yusef Komunyakaa: Blue Note in a Lyrical Landscape / Fran Gordon -- Kevin Bezner Interviews Yusef Komunyakaa / Kevin Bezner -- Komunyakaa's Riff / Lary Bloom -- American Voices and the Cakewalk of Language: Yusef Komunyakaa in Conversation with Terrance Hayes / Terrance Hayes -- A Finer Form: T. J. Anderson and Yusef Komunyakaa in Conversation / T. J. Anderson, Trudier Harris, Jerry W. Ward -- Furious Flower II: Cross-Pollination in the Diaspora / Tony Bolden -- A Poet of Suffering, Endurance, and Healing / Chris Hedges -- Komunyakaa and the Kolkata Book Fair: Entries from a Diary of a Journey to India / Goutam Datta -- Yusef Komunyakaa / Dan Webster -- A Conversation with Yusef Komunyakaa / Jeffrey Dodd, Jessica Moll -- Every Tool Became a Weapon: Talking with Yusef Komunyakaa about Race and War / Tod Marshall -- Index. Publisher Marketing:"Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa" brings together over two decades of interviews and profiles with one of America's most prolific and acclaimed contemporary poets. Yusef Komunyakaa (b. 1947) describes his work alternately as "word paintings" and as "music," and his affinity with the visual and aural arts is amply displayed in these conversations. The volume also addresses the diversity and magnitude of Komunyakaa's literary output. His collaborations with artists in a variety of genres, including music, dance, drama, opera, and painting have produced groundbreaking performance pieces. Throughout the collection, Komunyakaa's interest in finding and creating poetry across the artistic spectrum is made manifest. For his collection "Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, 1977-1989," Komunyakaa became the first African American male to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. Through his work he provides keen insight into life's mysteries from seemingly inconsequential and insignificant life forms ("Ode to the Maggot") to some of the most compelling historical and life-altering events of our time, such as the Vietnam War ("Facing It"). Influenced strongly by jazz, blues, and folklore, as well as the classical poetic tradition, his poetry comprises a riveting chronicle of the African American experience.

Contributor Bio:  Komunyakaa, Yusef Yusef Komunyakaa's twelve books of poems include Taboo, Warhorses, Talking Dirty to the Gods, and Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Komunyakaa first received wide recognition following the 1984 publication of Copacetic, a collection of poems built from colloquial speech which demonstrated his incorporation of jazz influences. He followed the book with two others: I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), winner of the San Francisco Poetry Center Award; and Dien Cai Dau (1988), which won The Dark Room Poetry Prize and has been cited by poets such as William Matthews and Robert Hass as being among the best writing on the war in Vietnam. Komunyakaa is the recipient of the 2011 Wallace Stevens Award. His other honors include the William Faulkner Prize from the Universite de Rennes, the Thomas Forcade Award, the Hanes Poetry Prize, fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Louisiana Arts Council, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He teaches poetry and creative writing in the Department of English at New York University. Contributor Bio:  Hanshaw, Shirley A James Shirley A. James Hanshaw is assistant professor of English at Mississippi State University. Her work has been published in "Thirty Years After: New Essays on Vietnam War Literature, Film, and Other Arts", as well as "The Literary Griot: International Journal of Black Expressive Studies" and "Journal of the African Literature Association".