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Dear Yusef
Essays, Letters, and Poems, For and About One Mr. Komunyakaa
Edited John Murillo , Nicole Sealey
Sales Date: 2024-11-05
Anthology of new work honoring the legacy of a celebrated African American poet
This carefully and generously curated mosaic of essays, letters, and poems reveals the profound impact that poet Yusef Komunyakaa has had on poets, educators, and readers worldwide. The anthology brings together creative and critical offerings from fellow poets, former students, literary entities, and other admirers. There are emerging and established voices—from previously unpublished writers to Pulitzer Prize winning poets. Together these pieces honor one of the most influential writers of the last half century, one, it turns out, who is as beloved for his teaching as he is celebrated for his creative work. Contributors include Terrance Hayes, Sharon Olds, Carolyn Forché, Toi Derricotte, and Martín Espada, among others. Dear Yusef affirms Komunyakaa's transformative influence, showcasing how his mentoring has ignited creativity, nurtured passion, and fostered a sense of belonging among countless individuals. Through the artistry of these testimonials, we witness the transformative power of poetry and the enduring legacy of a true literary icon.
Introduction • What Counts: Letters and Personal Essays • Reginald Dwayne Betts: "Dear Yusef" • Emily Brandt: "Refuge" • Carolyn Forché: "A Journey to Kolkata with Yusef Komunyakaa, January 2008" • Brian Gilmore: "Chasing Yusef (for Kenny May)" • Jennifer Grotz: "The Forty-Fourth Poem" • Terrance Hayes: "Everyday Mojo Letters to Yusef Komunyakaa" • Adrian Matejka: "Off the Rim" • Kenneth May: "Dice in a Hard Time Hustle: Yusef Komunyakaa & Etheridge Knight: 1988-1991" • JD Scrimgeour: "Bloomington" • Nicole Sealey: Office Hours • Emily Yoon: "Dear Yusef' • Insufficient Blue: Poems For Yusef • Doug Anderson: "Colonial Album" • C Scott Bailey: "What Walking Brings" • Margo Berdeshevsky (w/ image): "Dear Yusef" • Nicole Cooley: "Yusef's Lessons" • Curtis Crisler: "Superheroes Born by a Black Nerd" • Joel Dias-Porter: "Seven Songs of the Sparrow" • Martín Espada: "Not Words But Hands" • Linda Susan Jackson: "Komunyakaa at the International Center for Photography, June 11, 2007" • Major Jackson: "Reading Yusef" • Jennifer Jean: "Copacetic Judy" • Jaqueline Johnson: "Laugh" • Zach Kluckman: "Why I Keep Coming Back to It" • Matthew Lippman: "Because Wouldn't It Be Cool if He Were the Father of the World" • Sebastian Matthews: "Dear Yusef, Dear Komunyakaa" • Philip Metres: "Hieroglyphs for Komunyakaa" • Dante Micheaux: "The Conjurer's Apprentice" • Jonathan Moody: "Soul's Edge" • John Murillo: "Dear Yusef," • Sharon Olds: "Y is for Y U S E F K O M U N Y A K A A" • Jennifer Richter: "Cento for Yusef, Whose Words Led Me to Mine" • Lynne Thompson: "3/4 Jazz" • Charlie Veric: "A Poet is Addressing My Loneliness" • Shari Wagner: "William's Shoes" • The Work of Orpheus: Critical Essays and Other Considerations • Tyree Daye: "Notes" • Toi Derricotte: "Beauty, Victory and Survival in the Poetry of Yusef Komunyakaa" • Myronn Hardy: "The Calamity of Unknowing" • Melissa Johnson: "Yusef Komunyakaa's Dien Cai Dau: Vietnam as Femme Fatale" • Anne Marie Macari: "The Poet as Shape Shifter: Yusef Komunyakaa's 'Ode to the Chameleon'" • Jeffrey McDaniel: "Thank You for the Eyes in Your Head" • Gregory Pardlo: "Dear Yusef Komunyakaa: On Neon Vernacular and the Half-Life of Double Consciousness" • Ed Pavlic: "'Modern Man in the Pepperpot': The Black Musical Substructure of Yusef Komunyakaa's Poetic Thought" • Hannah Saltmarsh: "Yusef Komunyakaa's Scenes of Vietnam and Louisiana: The Forever Crisis of Racial Terror in Dien Cai Dau (1988)" • Artress Bethany White: "'Facing It': Of Soldiers, Patriotism, and Literary Resistance" • Translating Footsteps: Poems After Komunyakaa • Dan Albergotti: "Shovel to the Maggot" • Paula Bohince: "Rattlesnake" • Lucia Orellana Damacela: "En el trayecto de Da Nang a Hoi An" • Carrie Etter: "Facing It" • Kathy Fagan: "October" • Yolanda J. Franklin: "a Cento for Langston's Blues" • Eugene Gloria: "To Idleness, an Ode" • Derrick Harriel: "Headless" • Didi Jackson: "Summer Ends with a Line by Yusef Komunyakaa" • Valerie Jean: "After Reading 'Anodyne' by Yusef Komunyakaa" • Meghan Kemp-Gee: "Crossing a city highway at 3 a.m. in the Coyote Head Nebula, IRAS 15541-5349" • Wallace Lane: "At the Vietnam Memorial Wall Circa 2018" • Yesenia Montilla: "What Does an Immigrant's Daughter Know of War" • Malik Noël-Ferdinand: "Ode to the Flute" • Deborah Paredez: "Self Portrait in Flesh and Stone" • Peggy Robles-Alvarado: "Love Letters for Tio Manolo" • Derrick Weston-Brown: "Half-Mast Days" • L. Lamar Wilson: "On Passing, or How to Stare at a Kardashian's Bum Without Blinking" • Matthew Wimberley: "Ode to a Thread of Spider-Silk Between a Dead and Living Tree" • Contributors • Acknowledgments
JOHN MURILLO is the author of the poetry collections, Up Jump the Boogie and Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry. Among his honors are the 2021 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the Four Quartets Prize from the Academy of American Poets and the TS Eliot Foundation, and the Poetry Society of Virginia's North American Book Award. Currently, he serves as associate professor of English at Wesleyan University. NICOLE SEALEY is the author of The Ferguson Report: An Erasure (2023), an excerpt from which was awarded the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem, Ordinary Beast (2017), finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Open Book Award, and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named (2016), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. She was the Executive Director at Cave Canem from 2017–2019. She teaches in the MFA Writers Workshop in Paris program at New York University.
"It should not be this rare to have such a rich offering, wherein a chorus of voices that a writer has fostered, both as a teacher and poet, is gathered to sing with erudite, heart-filled admiration. How lucky we are, then, to have this testament to Yusef's profound reach on the deepest practitioners of the art, his ever-unfolding grace and generosity through the years made manifest in their letters. It's the best kind of party, this book, where the music is low and the voices rise over it all—and every word counts."
~Ocean Vuong, author of Time is a Mother
"This celebration of poet and teacher Yusef Komunyakaa aggregates memory, critical consideration, and tribute poems, giving testimony to the impact he has had on those who have had the good fortune to encounter him. Dear Yusef is a bountiful bouquet of deep love, and this poet deserves every last rose."
~Lauren K. Alleyne, Executive Director, Furious Flower Poetry Center
"Dear Yusef reminds me of the tiger under a rainbow at nightfall in one of Komunyakaa's poems. These essays and letters and poems glow like that rainbow under which chuffs one of the great poets of the last hundred years. This book testifies to his enormous influence upon countless writers. Like his magical poems, this book is a talisman. It's a black cat bone, a mojo, and a John the Conqueror root"
~Tomas Q. Morin, author of Machete
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