Yusef Komunyakaa was born in rural Louisiana, the son of a carpenter. His numerous poetry collections include Dien Cai Dau, a stark portrayal of the Vietnam War, for which he served as a correspondent; Neon Vernacular, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and the Pulitzer Prize; and Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth: New and Selected Poems 2001–2021 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021). His honors include the Wallace Stevens Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the William Faulkner Prize. Komunyakaa earned an MFA from the University of California–Irvine and is a senior faculty member in the New York University Creative Writing Program.
Photograph by Tom Wallace.
WORKS THAT HAVE APPEARED IN NARRATIVE:
- from “The Last Bohemian of Avenue A”, poetry, in Winter 2020
- English, poetry, in Fall 2016