Urban Renewal

By Yusef Komunyakaa b. 1947 Yusef Komunyakaa

The sun slides down behind brick dust,

today’s angle of life. Everything

melts, even when backbones

are I-beams braced for impact.

Sequential sledgehammers fall, stone

shaped into dry air

white soundsystem of loose metal

under every footstep. Wrecking crews,

men unable to catch sparrows without breaking

wings into splinters. Blues-horn

mercy. Bloodlines. Nothing

but the white odor of absence.

The big iron ball

swings, keeping time

to pigeons cooing in eaves

as black feathers

float on to blueprint

parking lots.

Source: Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2001)

Biography

In his poetry, Yusef Komunyakaa weaves together the elements of his own life in short lines of vernacular to create complex images of life in his native Louisiana and the jungles of Vietnam. From his humble beginnings as the son of a carpenter, Komunyakaa has traveled far to become a scholar, professor, and prize-winning poet. In 1994, he claimed the Pulitzer Prize and the $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his Neon . . .

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