Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems
Neon Vernacular gathers new poems with selections from seven earlier books by Yusef Komunyakaa, from Copacetic through Magic City and Dien Cai Dau. The volume moves between a Louisiana childhood shadowed by Jim Crow, a tour of duty as an Army journalist in Vietnam, and the New York and New Orleans music that runs beneath everything he writes. Komunyakaa's line is dense, syncopated, and sensuous, and he trusts the ear as much as the eye. The book won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and helped make Komunyakaa one of the most respected American poets of his generation. It is a landmark of contemporary African American poetry.
What you might want to know about Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Yusef Komunyakaa's Pulitzer winning collection, drawing on his Louisiana childhood, his tour in Vietnam, and a lifelong love of jazz.
Yes. Coates has named Yusef Komunyakaa as one of the poets who most shaped his ear and cited Neon Vernacular among the books he returns to, in interviews and on his social channels.
No. The references enrich the poems but Komunyakaa's imagery and rhythm carry readers who come to the book cold.
Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems was written by Yusef Komunyakaa, published in 1993 by Wesleyan University Press.
Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems is 176 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems takes most readers 3 to 4 hours to finish.
Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.