Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa delivers a powerful meditation on American, and particularly African American, life in the wake of Vietnam. In poems overflowing with language, memories of childhood are tinged with memories of war. Drawing on multiple traditions, Komunyakaa's poetry is potent, live, and, like the strains of jazz running through it, an erudite and soulful music.
Author: Yusef Komunyakaa · Original publisher: Wesleyan University Press (Middletown, CT, 1998)
Tier 3 — Partial text + link. No text is hosted on Gary NOI. Read free: https://archive.org/details/thievesofparadis0000komu (Internet Archive lending copy — borrowable; IA item ID as recorded in Tranche B2: thievesofparadis0000komu; author-verified in recheck; no hosting rights).