SOURCE: "Facing Up to the Deadly Ordinary," in The New York Times Book Review, October 4, 1987, p. 24.

Flamm is an American journalist. In the following excerpt, he characterizes I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head as "fierce yet mysterious," though he also notes some "poetic posturing."

Yusef Komunyakaa's first book of poems was called Copacetic, a description it lived up to with its street-rhythmic, impromptu style. His new collection, I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (the book is better than the title), continues his explorations of local history, private experience and the charged, semi-surreal language that can dig out the difficult truths in either one. Mr. Komunyakaa works intuitively, with an intense distrust of any sort of conventional knowledge. "The audacity of the lower gods—/ whatever we name we own," he says.

      I'd rather let the flowers
      keep doing what they do best.
      Unblessing each petal...