Top Highlights

• Komunyakaa was inspired to write the poem following a visit to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial some 14 years after his time as a soldier in the Vietnam War.
• looking at his reflection in the memorial's shiny surface and staring at the names of fallen soldiers
• Couched within this is a meditation on race, as the speaker (who is Black) feels as if his face blends into the memorial's dark granite—a metaphor for American society's unwillingness to fully acknowledge the sacrifice Black soldiers made for their country at a time when the U.S. still deprived them of so many fundamental rights.

Domain