Yusef Komunyakaa and the Ampersand

&&&&&&&&&&&&& I just bought Yusef Komunyakaa's Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, to get a lot of this Pulitzer winner's poetry in a large quantity at once. Komunyakaa's range of talent commands respect and invites careful reading. Not too long ago I watched his UC Berkeley lecture, thanks to Youtube, and I was entranced. The same hypnotizing power is present in Neon Vernacular, which I am reading alongside Derek Walcott and Al Young, to discover the different techniques these poets use. One outstanding feature of Komunyakaa's collection so far, which to some might appear pedantic, is the use of the ampersand to replace 'and'. Supposed to make the conjunction invisible, it is achieving the opposite effect: the ampersand is visible and it forces me to linger near the phrases or clauses it joins to feel something. I call it the inviting, if not enticing or provocative, ampersand: &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&.

This summer I want to acquaint myself fully with three key black poets: Al Young, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Derek Walcott.

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