Analysis Of Thanks By Yusef Komunyakaa

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The two poems that I have selected for the Analytic Paper are “Blue Light Lounge Sutra For The Performance Poets At Harold Park Hotel” and “Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa. The former was read and analyzed as part of a class discussion early on in the quarter while the latter is a piece never analyzed, but closely related to another that was examined for its content and stylistic techniques (“Facing It”, Penguin Anthology, page 441). Though both were written by the same author, there are specific discrepancies in rhythm and wording that create artistic differences that suit the subject of each piece. Both poems use repetition of phrases and anaphora to establish a pace for the speaker’s voice. The repeating syllables provide a pseudo-break in …show more content…

Similarly, Komunyakaa denotes transition in his “Blue Light Lounge …show more content…

Even when the structure of both poems are the same (no stanza breaks), the differences in the speaker’s voice and diction play an enormous part in building the poem’s plot and setting. And though Komunyakaa employs the same techniques in both poems, the end result is so different from the other through meticulous attention to the connotative quality of specific words and phrases that “Blue Light Lounge Sutra” perfectly depicts the thrall of performance through the seductive references of the properties of jazz and lounge music. On other the hand, “Thanks” is a subtle but powerful depiction of the violence seen in the Vietnam War due to its address of personal experience juxtaposed with an extreme outside environment that most readers have never encountered. Each break in a sentence artistically elevates the colloquial voice of speaker and produces an underlying poetic element that emphasizes its content, namely the distinction between the use of the abstract and the concrete. Both pieces are dependent on the reader’s ability to perceive the central theme of the content, but through attentive and purposeful use of linguistic and stylistic techniques, the differences apparent in each poem create an individual voice to that truly brings out the author’s

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