Yusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa is an internationally renowned poet and educator. For decades, he has offered complex and vivid portraits to students and readers dealing with themes of war, nationality, racism, and their intersections. As Toi Derricotte notes, "Komunyakaa takes on the most complex moral issues, the most harrowingly ugly subjects of our American life. His voice, whether it embodies the specific experiences of a black man, a soldier in Vietnam, or a child in Bogalusa, Louisiana, shows us in ever deepening ways what it is to be human."[1] His deep impact on the literary world continues to resonate through the forms, styles, and personae he employs across his work.

Komunyakaa’s mastery of the musical and embodied dimesnions of language is clear throughout his work. He has described his earlier collections, such as Copacetic as "tonal, visual kinds of collages,"[2] though he notes that their wide variety of topics and forms make them difficult to categorize. In his later work, including Talking Dirty to the Gods and The Emperor of Water Clocks, his poetry takes on a striking surrealism.

The formal aspects of his poetry range from jazz-influenced free verse to the precise compression and exact silences of traditional poetic forms. As he notes in an interview with Malin Pereira: "The poem is a composite of symbols and silences."[3] In his collaborations with musicians, Komunyakaa has written librettos for the operas Slip Knot and Wakonda’s Dream, as well as performance pieces such as The Reincarnated Beethoven.

Komunyakaa has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his collection Neon Vernacular, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, to name only a few. He is currently a professor of English at NYU.

In this interview, Yusef Komunyakaa and Tony Bolden discuss language as music, the knowledge contained in the body, the parallels between carpentry and poetic form, as well as Komunyakaa’s artistic process.

Tony Bolden is an essayist and a professor of African and African-American Studies at the University of Kansas. His essays have been published in the CLA Journal, African American Review, and Obsidian. He recently published a book, Groove Theory: The Blues Foundation of Funk.

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[1]: Derricotte, Toi, and Yusef Komunyakaa. "Seeing and Re-Seeing: An Exchange between Yusef Komunyakaa and Toi Derricotte." Callaloo 28, no. 3 (2005): 513–18.

[2]: Komunyakaa, Yusef, and Shirley A. J. Hanshaw. Conversations with Yusef Komunyakaa, 20. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2010.

[3]: Pereira, Malin, Wanda Coleman, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove, Harryette Mullen, Thylias Moss, Cornelius Eady, Cyrus Cassells, and Elizabeth Alexander. "Yusef Komunyakaa." In Into a Light Both Brilliant and Unseen: Conversations with Contemporary Black Poets, 45–68. University of Georgia Press, 2010.

Preferred Citation:

Yusef Komunyakaa Interview, 9/24/2004 (FF142). Transcribed and edited by Evan Sizemore, 2021-2022, part of the Mellon-funded AudiAnnotate Audiovisual Extensible Workflow Project. Based on video recordings made by WVPT to document the second Furious Flower Poetry Center decennial meeting, September 23-25, 2004. Part of the Furious Flower Poetry Center Conference Records, 1970-2015, UA 0018, Special Collections, Carrier Library, James Madison University Libraries, Harrisonburg, Virginia, media file FF142. Collection finding aid: https://aspace.lib.jmu.edu/repositories/4/resources/487.

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0:06 - 0:06 --B-o-l-d-e-n. Transcription
0:10 - 0:14 Yusef Komunyakaa. K-o-m-u-n-y-a-k-a-a. Transcription
0:20 - 0:21 We're supposed to be looking at the camera? Transcription
0:22 - 0:23 Then, but from now on... Transcription
0:23 - 0:25 We're not here. Transcription
0:25 - 0:29 That was the only time you get to look at the camera. Now just talk to each other. Transcription
0:30 - 0:44 Well, Mr. Komunyakaa, I'm happy that you were able to come today. And I wanted to ask you about your poem, Ode to a Drum. I think that's one of the great classics of African Transcription
0:44 - 0:48 American literature. How did that poem come about? Transcription
0:51 - 1:10 It's a poem of tribute to the idea of the drum. Especially since we think about the fact that drums were banned at one time in our history. What's interesting about it is this idea Transcription
1:10 - 1:20 that-- of this object, but at the end of it, the object comes alive, and walks away. Transcription
1:20 - 1:21 Let me break you guys there. Transcription
1:22 - 1:24 Okay. And, we're rolling. Transcription
1:26 - 1:36 I wanted to ask you about your poem. Ode to a Drum. I think that's one of the great classics of African American literature. How did the poem come about? Transcription
1:36 - 1:58 Well the poem came out of the idea of the drum. In Congo Square, the drum had been banned for a time of slavery. And what interested me about this idea of the drum being an object, Transcription
1:59 - 2:22 It could come alive, and and be instrumental in its necessary expression, passion as such. It's also a tribute to the idea of the daughter in the in the poem as well. Transcription
2:22 - 2:38 Okay, alright. I heard you read that I think in Atlanta in the late eighties. And if I'm not mistaken, you attributed that poem in part to an experience in Australia. Am I correct about Transcription
2:38 - 2:39 that? Transcription
2:39 - 2:54 What happened was that somebody wanted me to write a number of music related poems, to be read to music. And I meditated on the idea. And that's what I came up with. Transcription
2:56 - 3:17 There are a number of my experiences in Australia, enliven my pursuit of certain images and certain ideas and poems. A good example of that would be testimony. Testimony came out of someone's Transcription
3:17 - 3:21 request to write about Charlie Parker. Transcription
3:22 - 3:42 I see, I see. Alright, well there's that ending, 'Kadoom. Kadoom', which is kind of paralinguistic imagery there. You know, it seems that sound is actually part of the meaning of the poem Transcription
3:42 - 3:45 at that point. Would you want to comment on that? Transcription
3:45 - 4:04 Well, it also takes us back to the idea that I have that, as far as language goes, it is our first music. It has a lot to do with how something is expressed. The body knows deeply Transcription
4:05 - 4:07 what the language is about. Transcription
4:08 - 4:27 And the body as an amplifier of emotions, images, and everything. I've seen an image somewhere that says the body remembers, and in the same way in the drum. The drum remembers life. Transcription
4:28 - 4:42 Well that's an interesting concept, because that suggests that, I mean what you're suggesting in terms of imagery coming from the body. And I've read where you've talked about poetry Transcription
4:42 - 4:46 being integrally related to language itself. Transcription
4:46 - 5:03 You've talked about your grandmother's rhythms and you attribute your own sense of poetry to the cadence of the voice. You know, in traditional Western thought there is a split between the mind and Transcription
5:03 - 5:10 the body-- that the two are mutually exclusive, and your comment there seems to counter that. Transcription
5:10 - 5:23 Well, essentially, one is married to the other. It's all part of the same thing. Matter of fact, the whole development of the brain, I think, has everything to do with the dexterity Transcription
5:23 - 5:24 of the hands. Transcription
5:24 - 5:43 And that is still happening. That's why it's difficult for me to think of people composing poems on computers and typewriters. Because I just like the fact of that tactile relationship of the pen or Transcription
5:43 - 5:50 pencil pressed against the paper, still sending signals to the brain. Transcription
5:50 - 5:57 I see. I see. Well have you read Kamau Brathwaite's recent work? Because he does a lot of experimenting-- Transcription
5:57 - 6:10 Matter of fact I have, I have. And I just read a poem of his in Black Renaissance, which is part of that collection. But I had the privilege of reading that collection early Transcription
6:10 - 6:11 on. Transcription
6:13 - 6:22 How do you know when a poem is finished? You have a sense of feel, or what-- how do you, how can you tell? Transcription
6:23 - 6:25 Some poems tell me that they're finished. Transcription
6:25 - 6:27 They talk to you! Transcription
6:28 - 6:44 They talk to me. But my process is quite improvisational. So I write everything. And then I begin to edit the poem down. Initially, the poem perhaps is 150 lines long, and I edit it Transcription
6:44 - 6:47 down to 30 or 40 lines. Transcription
6:47 - 7:06 And at the very end, I began to go back up through the poem from the bottom, realizing often that I've written past the most important, most provocative, ending. The poem shouldn't resolve, shouldn't Transcription
7:06 - 7:09 be a resolution, is what I feel. Transcription
7:09 - 7:26 I see. I see. So does this have to do with the kinds of surprises, the kinds of foregrounding of implicit knowledge that's inscribed in the music of Thelonious Monk, say? Transcription
7:27 - 7:41 Yes, silence. Silence. I've said somewhere that Monk is a technician of silence. And silence is a part of music. One doesn't have music without silence. One doesn't have the Transcription
7:41 - 7:46 properties of modulation without silence. So that's important. Transcription
7:48 - 8:04 And what I feel in contemporary society-- often we don't have the capacity for solitude. So silence and solitude, all of that is part of the emotional chemistry of a piece. Transcription
8:05 - 8:12 Okay. Do you work on more than one poem at a time? And if you do, why is that? Transcription
8:12 - 8:27 I work on more than one collection at a time. Usually, usually I'm working on three collections at once, side by side. And it's more or less to keep myself earnest with my emotions, Transcription
8:28 - 8:29 and passions. Transcription
8:31 - 8:53 I have the ability to move from one thing to the next, and not carry over one to the other. And I don't know how that came about. I think perhaps it came about in my early writing, which was Transcription
8:53 - 8:54 journalistic. Transcription
8:56 - 8:57 In the military. Transcription
8:57 - 9:15 Military, yeah. Where I would cover a number of stories in a given day and not have one spill over into the other. It was defined, contained. But maybe the brain works that way Transcription
9:15 - 9:25 anyway. I'm thinking, our capacity to handle information is definitely beyond the computer. Transcription
9:27 - 9:29 Beyond technology. Transcription
9:29 - 9:30 Beyond technology. Transcription
9:30 - 9:30 The machine. Transcription
9:31 - 9:31 The machine, yes. Transcription
9:33 - 9:51 Well, you know, you talk about-- that there's a need to remove the layers of facades and superficialities. That one's voice is already there, but you have to kind of remove the excess. Transcription
9:52 - 9:59 Could you comment on how one does that? I'm sure it's individual but, you know-- Transcription
9:59 - 10:20 One way I think is that in process, I think it's important for one to read one's work aloud to oneself. Because the ear is a great editor. I do believe that. And to be able to Transcription
10:20 - 10:34 realize when there are false notes, and also to be able to realize that one hasn't said everything that one should say, in a given piece, to go back. Transcription
10:35 - 10:52 Revision is part of my process. But revision is to-- and for a long time I've said it was to re-see. But I've sort of expanded that to relive and re-experience as well. To be able to trust oneself Transcription
10:53 - 11:03 with some of the early words and phrases. Transcription
11:07 - 11:23 We return to our early selves, and to trust that, to trust that space. And at the same time realizing that we're also constantly growing. So we incorporate other things into who we are, as well. Transcription
11:24 - 11:28 Because we're active organisms. Transcription
11:28 - 11:31 A kind of a resolution of dualities. Transcription
11:31 - 11:36 Yes, yes, yes. But we're complex, and we're not one dimensional in any way. Transcription
11:38 - 11:46 Well, you know, you talked about your own background in terms of-- your father was a carpenter. Transcription
11:46 - 12:11 And it seems to me that that sense of craft, that sense of that concern for precision, has translated into not only your own sense of craft and dedication to craft, but also a work ethic. You know, Transcription
12:11 - 12:15 you talk about writing every day. Could you comment on that? Transcription
12:15 - 12:29 Well, you know, my father was a finishing carpenter. But this last week, I was thinking about the fact that the first thing I saw him build were birdhouses. He wasn't a carpenter Transcription
12:29 - 12:44 then. He was only-- it was his apprenticeship, I think. Because he built these birdhouses so concise. He built them with little porches, chimneys, and what have you. And they were built to scale. Transcription
12:46 - 13:05 And I suppose it has a lot to do with the fact that lumber, and nails and things were expensive, and all that stuff, you know. But he was very precise. He would measure everything two or three times, Transcription
13:05 - 13:16 and then we'd cut a board. He said, there isn't any light between these two. That's how he would say, you know, it was a perfect fit. Transcription
13:18 - 13:33 But it had to do with being patient. And also, in retrospect, I realized that carpentry, especially as a finishing carpenter, there's a certain kind of solitude as well. So he probably was meditating Transcription
13:33 - 13:40 on a number of things as well. And writing is also an act of solitude. Transcription
13:40 - 13:59 Yeah, certainly. The kind of patience that you mentioned, is a kind of, a certain contrast to, kind of instant commodification that we get today, in terms of-- Transcription
13:59 - 14:01 Such as writing a poem on a computer. Transcription
14:04 - 14:27 Okay. Alright. You know, Brathwaite's not here. You suggested that art functions as social critique, and that beauty doesn't have to be escapist. That it can confront the evils of our Transcription
14:27 - 14:41 time with a sort of dressed up kind of representation of life. You know, how does that-- how's that reflected in your work? Transcription
14:41 - 14:59 Well, when we think of beauty, we think of something defined for us. I would like to think of beauty in a different way, as something that we are defining as we are experiencing it. Transcription
15:01 - 15:24 Monk has a title, I think he calls it Ugly Beauty. And I like to think about that in a way. I have a friend who's interested in visual arts, and some of the things that she paints-- the Transcription
15:26 - 15:34 individual who views it, initially might say, oh gosh, that is kind of almost grotesque, isn't it? Transcription
15:34 - 15:47 And but it's interesting, I've gone back to those pieces, and I've seen a severe beauty in those pieces. There's a kind of beauty that isn't on the surface. There's a beauty that comes through Transcription
15:48 - 16:04 experience and intensity of observation. Wheras sometimes the beauty that is on the surface becomes rather problematic, because it's a beauty that knows it is supposed to be beautiful. And Transcription
16:04 - 16:09 consequently, it is ugly inside. Transcription
16:09 - 16:25 That's a sort of a blues concept in the sense that it contains these contradictions. I'm struck by the visual appeal of your own work. Transcription
16:26 - 16:50 I'm listening to your work. It's sort of like a series of sonic paintings where image, sound, both in terms of language and, as in certain cases, paralinguistics, tone. Transcription
16:52 - 17:13 Sometimes it seems as though you vary your own cadence of the poem as you're reading it aloud. And that kind of fusion of the visual and sound is very, very difficult I've found, you know, reading Transcription
17:13 - 17:18 poets over the years. So how are you able to accomplish that? Transcription
17:18 - 17:34 I think it is informed by my early experiences. I grew up in a small town, Bogalusa, Louisiana. And the woods were so close to me, within a matter of minutes I could be there in the Transcription
17:34 - 17:44 midst of all of that. And early on, I was quite taken with what I saw around me, Transcription
17:44 - 18:05 and realizing that there's a kind of activity underneath moments of silence, even. And so I saw things visually. I began look at and think about the rituals of animals and how those parallel human Transcription
18:05 - 18:06 beings and what have you. Transcription
18:06 - 18:24 And I took my very first writing class, I think in 1973-- Dr. Alex Blackburn at the University of Colorado. And some people asked me, said Well, how do you define your poems? I said They are word Transcription
18:24 - 18:41 paintings. That's the only, that's the only way I could define them. Because also, I had entertained the idea of painting. But I don't think I have the endurance to do it. Transcription
18:42 - 18:43 Let's say you paint lyrically. Transcription
18:43 - 18:44 Right, right, right. Transcription
18:44 - 19:03 Let's say that you paint that way. How does-- I mean, you've recorded with musicians, and yesterday you talked about, you know, your collaboration with an opera. How does collaborating Transcription
19:03 - 19:13 with other artists, particularly musicians, affect your own composition of the work? Transcription
19:14 - 19:17 Usually my work is done first. Transcription
19:17 - 19:20 Ah, okay. So. Transcription
19:20 - 19:33 So, but since I think of language as music, there is that relationship. In reading with-- I do think there has to be a mutual respect. Transcription
19:33 - 19:33 Sure. Transcription
19:33 - 19:47 I have to respect the music, the musicians. And the musicians I work with respect language as such. They're not in opposition to language, or there's not a contest. There's not a Transcription
19:48 - 19:57 cutting contest between the reader and the musician. There's a kind of cooperation going on. So that's important. Transcription
19:57 - 20:21 I work very closely with Susie Ibarra, this amazing young Filipino percussionist. And she is-- she started off matter of fact, as a painter. And we have a very healthy relationship between words and Transcription
20:21 - 20:38 music. And other musicians I've worked with, such as John Tchicai, John Tchicai had worked with poets before. Before we sat next to each other, played next to each other. Transcription
20:38 - 20:49 Well one more question, because, you know, when you say you've already written the poem before, well, does it affect the way that you read it? When you-- Transcription
20:49 - 20:56 Sometimes yes. Sometimes less. Sometimes I want to introduce spaces where the music can enter. Transcription
20:56 - 20:59 Okay, I see. Again that silence. Transcription
20:59 - 21:07 Right, right right. But that silence becomes filled, it becomes filled with the genius of music. Transcription
21:08 - 21:24 Yeah, I've talked to a number of people who collaborated, and it's interesting to hear different kinds of responses, and depending on who you talk to, you get different kinds of Transcription
21:25 - 21:41 conceptualizations. And, but I thought you do that very, very well. Well, where do you see, you know, Black poetry going from here? Who are some of the younger poets that that you like? Transcription
21:43 - 22:01 There are a number of young poets out there I like. I am, especially those poets, I'm more attracted to those poets who haven't embraced entertainment. I'm more attracted to the Transcription
22:01 - 22:11 poets who rely heavily on the image to convey the emotion, that essentially realizing that the poem isn't an emotional act. Transcription
22:14 - 22:34 I'm less attracted to the performance poets, because it seems as if they are writing basically for performance entertainment, what have you. And I mistrust entertainment because I think it helps to Transcription
22:34 - 22:39 erase the culture and erase individuality. Transcription
22:41 - 23:08 So I-- when creativity is seen as commercial, as commodity, it becomes problematic for me. And I said somewhere that I had a problem with rap, for a simple reason. I mistrust pain as commodity. Transcription
23:09 - 23:23 Okay. Well, I was gonna ask you, I'll ask you a question anyway. Because when you just, when you said it was pain, that sort of does it. But how would you counter the argument that Louis Transcription
23:23 - 23:27 Jordan was entertainment, as well. Transcription
23:27 - 23:47 And, and people of his time felt, in many ways-- had very similar views about his music and other people who interpreted the blues idiom in the way that he did. Very similar to comments that you made Transcription
23:47 - 23:51 about about hip hop or rap. How would you, how would you counter that? Transcription
23:51 - 24:02 Well some-- Louis Jordan wasn't a poet. For the most part, he was an entertainer. He was an entertainer, but that's what I'm talking about. Essentially, he was an entertainer. There Transcription
24:02 - 24:12 are moments of buffoonery that I mistrust in Louis Jordan. There are also moments of genius that I do connect to in Louis Jordan. Transcription
24:12 - 24:17 Okay. Yeah, well. All right. Transcription
24:17 - 24:18 Does that make sense? Transcription
24:18 - 24:21 Sure, sure, no. It's, it's plenty. Transcription
24:21 - 24:23 Excuse me, Tony we've got about two minutes before we're supposed to run out. Transcription
24:24 - 24:26 Okay well, one last question. Transcription
24:28 - 24:38 Well, I want you to get two more. I want you to get that one in. And then one of either the historical-- one of the themed ones. Either historical or the diaspora or-- further on. You Transcription
24:38 - 24:38 started to ask about-- Transcription
24:38 - 24:42 Okay, let me ask the Diaspora, and then I'm gonna ask a question about Gwendolyn Brooks. Transcription
24:42 - 24:42 Okay. Transcription
24:42 - 24:54 Okay. How do you think African American poetry has influenced poets, writers, and ordinary folks in the African diaspora? Transcription
24:59 - 25:17 I'm surmising that a lot of poems are memorized, and particularly I'm thinking of Langston Hughes, some of his poems, they memorize. And it keeps us, it keeps us conscious of Transcription
25:17 - 25:29 history, of culture, of what have you. So, there's that influence. It's an influence of necessity. Transcription
25:32 - 25:52 I was very conscious of how the poet fits into a society because I was in Chile recently, and the celebration of Neruda, and children who memorize lots of Neruda and just everyday citizens and what Transcription
25:52 - 25:60 have you. I don't know if poetry can ever function that way in this society, because there are so many distractions. Transcription
26:02 - 26:24 Again, going back to everything is entertainment. So it's to be, it's to be processed and put aside. Poetry cannot be processed and put aside that way. Poetry calls for meditation and reflection. It's Transcription
26:24 - 26:25 something that we revisit. Transcription
26:27 - 26:45 So study is implicit in poetry. One final question. Gwendolyn Brooks said, 'We are each other's/ harvest:/ We are each other's/ business:/ We are each other's/ magnitude and bond.' At the Transcription
26:45 - 26:57 Furious Flower conference ten years ago, there was a sense of being bonded into a collective. In what ways is this true today, And in what ways has it changed? Transcription
26:59 - 27:22 As a collective? I do think that becomes part of-- I'd rather respond to Gwendolyn Brooks' work, and how I came to it is very important. I do think that need to be part of a larger Transcription
27:22 - 27:30 community perhaps is a problem. Transcription
27:31 - 27:49 I want to address that, even, in a different way. When I looked at her work, I always thought of her as an observer. Okay, and from the kitchenette, or what have you. You know, this is observation Transcription
27:49 - 27:58 tower. But I realize as well that that would have been a lonely place for her. Okay. Transcription
27:59 - 28:26 Now, this is something that isn't really talked about. She looked a certain way. Very ordinary. Okay? And we know, within the context of communities, how much emphasis is placed on looks. Okay? So I'm Transcription
28:26 - 28:35 surmising that she was a very lonely individual, within the context of the larger community. Transcription
28:36 - 29:01 And in the necessity to belong, she abandoned certain moments of creative genius. Because you will see a great dichotomy between those early poems and her later poems. Transcription
29:05 - 29:29 This was this need to belong, I suppose. For the artist, I think there are moments of solitude, there are moments of loneliness, there are moments of not necessarily belonging to that larger Transcription
29:29 - 29:35 community, because that larger community often will tell you how and what to write. Transcription
29:38 - 29:56 Or what to draw, or how to see the world, which is problematic. You know? One has to see through one's own heart. One's own-- one has to be a caretaker of one's own visions, and what have you. Transcription
29:58 - 30:13 So sort of a blend between blues, of blues, a blues vision and a Joycean sort of positionality. Transcription
30:13 - 30:14 I think so, I think so. Transcription
30:14 - 30:18 He talks about art as pairing his fingernails, etc. Transcription
30:19 - 30:23 That's right. That's right. And the blues is existential. Transcription
30:24 - 30:25 And surrealistic. Transcription
30:25 - 30:30 And surrealistic. That's right. Transcription
30:31 - 30:34 Well Mr. Komunyakaa, it's been a great pleasure talking with you. Transcription
30:35 - 30:36 Great pleasure talking with you. Transcription
30:36 - 30:36 Thank you so much. Transcription
30:36 - 30:37 Thank you. Transcription
30:38 - 30:45 Thank you, that was very nice. I just need you to talk for 30 seconds. Why don't you just make conversation while [inaudible] doing some cutaway shots. Transcription
30:46 - 30:47 Okay. Yeah. Transcription
30:47 - 30:48 Don't both talk at the same time. Transcription
30:49 - 30:51 Well, what are you working on now? Transcription
30:53 - 31:07 I'm working on performance pieces now. I'm working on a piece on Gilgamesh and-- that's for stage, I've been working directly with actors. I wanted to remain true to poetry without Transcription
31:07 - 31:09 it, so yeah. Transcription
31:09 - 31:17 It's sort of like you see the poetry, at least your own work, moving in the direction of theatre. Transcription
31:19 - 31:19 Umm-- Transcription
31:21 - 31:21 And that-- Transcription
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19:20 - 19:33 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
19:33 - 19:33 Tony Bolden Speaker
19:33 - 19:47 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
20:38 - 20:49 Tony Bolden Speaker
20:49 - 20:56 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
20:56 - 20:59 Tony Bolden Speaker
20:59 - 21:07 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
21:08 - 21:24 Tony Bolden Speaker
21:43 - 22:01 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
23:09 - 23:23 Tony Bolden Speaker
23:51 - 24:02 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
24:11 - 24:17 Tony Bolden Speaker
24:17 - 24:18 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
24:18 - 24:21 Tony Bolden Speaker
24:21 - 24:23 Speaker Unknown Speaker
24:24 - 24:26 Tony Bolden Speaker
24:28 - 24:38 Speaker Unknown Speaker
24:38 - 24:42 Tony Bolden Speaker
24:42 - 24:42 Speaker Unknown Speaker
24:42 - 24:54 Tony Bolden Speaker
24:59 - 25:17 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
26:27 - 26:45 Tony Bolden Speaker
26:59 - 27:22 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
29:58 - 30:13 Tony Bolden Speaker
30:13 - 30:14 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
30:14 - 30:18 Tony Bolden Speaker
30:19 - 30:23 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
30:24 - 30:25 Tony Bolden Speaker
30:25 - 30:30 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
30:31 - 30:34 Tony Bolden Speaker
30:35 - 30:36 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
30:36 - 30:36 Tony Bolden Speaker
30:36 - 30:37 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
30:38 - 30:45 Speaker Unknown Speaker
30:46 - 30:47 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
30:47 - 30:48 Speaker Unknown Speaker
30:49 - 30:51 Tony Bolden Speaker
30:53 - 31:07 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
31:09 - 31:17 Tony Bolden Speaker
31:19 - 31:19 Yusef Komunyakaa Speaker
31:21 - 31:21 Tony Bolden Speaker

Yusef Komunyakaa Interview, 9/24/2004 (FF142) at JMU Scholarly Commons.

IIIF manifest: https://JMU-AudiAnnotate.github.io/FFPC-Video-Transcriptions/ff142/manifest.json