Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall ? Analyze the photograph of the memorial from the Library of Congress and the poem ?Facing It? by Yusef Komunyakaa. What is the significance of the poem?s title and how are the speaker?s war experiences reflected in the war memorial? Does the speaker?s response to the memorial indicate that the conception and composition of the memorial were successful or unsuccessful as a public memorial?
Parameters
Remember you must:
Adhere to MLA format
Paper should range between 1,300 and 1,500 words
Link for the picture is below. Poem is attached. Please let me know if you have trouble downloading anything.
Facing It
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite. I said I wouldn’t,
dammit: No tears. I’m stone. I’m flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning. I turn
this way?the stone lets me go.
I turn that way?I’m inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap’s white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman’s blouse but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet’s image floats closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I’m a window.
He’s lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman’s trying to erase names: No, she’s brushing a boy’s hair.
