SOURCE: Salas, Angela M. “‘Flashbacks through the Heart’: Yusef Komunyakaa and the Poetry of Self-Assertion.” In The Furious Flowering of African American Poetry, edited by Joanne V. Gabbin, pp. 298-309. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999.

In the following essay, Salas praises Komunyakaa for the range, depth, and imaginativeness of his poetry.

Yusef Komunyakaa's life and career fit almost perfectly into the American ideal of the self-made man, arising from the ashes of harsh childhood and youth to attain success and power by dint of hard work, good luck, and fierce intelligence. The prototypical American ideal is most often a lad who finds himself a mentor and rises through the ranks of the business world, attaining money and power, yet remembers his humble beginnings. He is a practical man, doing practical things, and he never challenges the social or economic status quo; he fits in, gets to work, and...