", The speaker walks along the wall, taking in the 58,022 names inscribed on the monument. The poem begins with the author experiencing a loss of identity as he is at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Course Hero is not sponsored or endorsed by any college or university. The poem is called "Facing It," but the speaker seems at first unable to openly acknowledge where he is, as if he is putting off the necessity of admitting what he is here to do. This creates the impression that the speaker is having a flashback, heightening his sense of unreality and dislocation, as if he is not sure whether he is standing beside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or back in the war itself. In the next moment the speaker sees the names from the wall reflected on a woman's shirt. His reflection comes dimly back into view and regards him threateningly. The speaker sees names from the wall reflected on a woman's shirt, and he seems confused when she walks away and "the names stay on the wall." In the poem he is visiting the Vietnam memorial, "My black face fades, hiding inside the black granite." Still focusing on the white veteran, the speaker observes, "He's lost his right arm / inside the stone." A white veteran walks past the speaker without seeing him, and the speaker calls himself "a window." From the beginning, the speaker uses words to create vivid pictures of his experiences. But this wording also carries figurative weight, changing the way the speaker sees himself: as "a bird of prey" or as night trying not to give in to the arrival of morning. Significantly, the speaker does not round off the number of names down to the nearest hundred or use a vague phrase like "tens of thousands." Early in the poem the speaker tries to be stone. In this way the speaker is literally inside the monument. The ex-soldier finds himself staring his past in the face. In the opening sentence, the speaker uses the word "black" twice, emphasizing that it is a black-skinned face lost in the black stone. But the speaker soon realizes his mistake. The poem also suggests that the reflection obscures the speaker's identity. This image, presented on two lines, creates an emotional jolt followed by a question. "Facing It" opens with a speaker observing—or rather, failing to observe—his own reflection in polished granite. This post brings to you a summary and analysis of the poem ‘Facing It’ by Yusef Komunyakaa. In fact, he starts out by trying not to face his emotions. When he moves back, he once again sees his reflection in the gleaming surface of the monument. Perhaps the speaker is describing another trick of the light, like the ones that erased his reflection or made names appear on a woman's shirt. Although the speaker acknowledges the whole number of American military personnel who died in Vietnam, he names only one of them: Andrew Johnson, a soldier from the poet's hometown of Bogalusa, Louisiana. Realistically, engraved names cannot be erased from stone, but this is a fleeting impression coming from a speaker who just now expected his own name to appear among the other engravings. The poet presents this line in the present tense, without a preamble or other distinction to differentiate the memory from the present moment. But the phrase "inside the stone" creates ambiguity. In 1984, Komunyakaa began to reflect on his experiences—although his decision to write about Vietnam wasn’t entirely deliberate. Summary of Facing It “Facing It” by Yusef Komunyakaa speaks of one man’s reaction to seeing the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, D.C. and the memories brought up by its reflective, granite surface. Facing the Vietnam War Memorial Read More. As the poem progresses, it becomes clear that this speaker is a Vietnam Veteran struggling with his memories and emotions surrounding the war, the friends he lost, and his own status as a survivor.

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