{"id":216,"date":"2008-03-11T08:27:17","date_gmt":"2008-03-11T12:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.berkshirelinks.com\/berkshires-news\/poetry\/yusef-komunyakaa\/"},"modified":"2008-03-11T08:27:17","modified_gmt":"2008-03-11T12:27:17","slug":"yusef-komunyakaa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/yusef-komunyakaa\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellowjackets, poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, American Life in Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>American Life in Poetry: Column 154<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006<\/p>\n<p>Here, poet <strong>Yusef Komunyakaa<\/strong>, who teaches at <strong>New York University<\/strong>, shows us a fine portrait of the hard life of a worker\u2014in this case, a horse\u2014and, through metaphor, the terrible, clumsy beauty of his final moments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yellowjackets<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When the plowblade struck<br \/>\nAn old stump hiding under<br \/>\nThe soil like a beggar&#8217;s<br \/>\nRotten tooth, they swarmed up<br \/>\n&#038; Mister Jackson left the plow<br \/>\nWedged like a whaler&#8217;s harpoon.<br \/>\nThe horse was midnight<br \/>\nAgainst dusk, tethered to somebody&#8217;s<br \/>\nPocketwatch. He shivered, but not<br \/>\nThe way women shook their heads<br \/>\nBefore mirrors at the five<br \/>\n&#038; dime\u2014a deeper connection<br \/>\nTo the low field&#8217;s evening star.<br \/>\nHe stood there, in tracechains,<br \/>\nLathered in froth, just<br \/>\nStopped by a great, goofy<br \/>\nCalmness. He whinnied<br \/>\nOnce, &#038; then the whole<br \/>\nBeautiful, blue-black sky<br \/>\nFell on his back. <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/\">www.poetryfoundation.org<\/a>), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright \u00a9 2001 by Yusef Komunyakaa, reprinted from <em>Pleasure Dome: New &#038; Collected Poems, 1975-1999<\/em>, Wesleyan Univ. Press, 2001, by permission. Introduction copyright \u00a9 2007 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction&#8217;s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yellowjackets, poem by Yusef Komunyakaa, American Life in Poetry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/idealpoetry.com\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}