Excerpt coming from Term Newspaper:
Therefore, Sharon Olds’ poem advances through a number of interesting photos, which evaluate the relationship between Apollonian as well as the Dionysian states, that is, in the pure individuality to a condition of merging with the various other and overstepping the restrictions of the self.
Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem has a similar structure. In his Facing it, the writer rememorizes an event from the Vietnam War. The poem starts abruptly with all the image of the poet’s dark face that fades “hiding inside the dark-colored granite: “My black face fades, as well as hiding inside black granite. / My spouse and i said We wouldn’t, dammit: No holes. / Now i am stone. Now i’m flesh. as well as My clouded reflection eye me as well as like a fowl of victim, the profile of evening slanted against morning. “(Komunyakaa, 129) the that starts the composition is hence already very representative: the author seems to business lead a anxious struggle with his own do it yourself. The black face that fades inside the black granitic is obviously a symbol of the war as a modifying experience that throws a shadow within the self or the individual, merging it with all the others. Inside the war, there may be obviously zero distinction among one person and the other, the individuality cannot be preserved. If he tries to remember his encounter, the poet finds that he can barely distinguish his own personal from the others, and this individual even starts to look for his own identity on the big list of the victims listed at the Memorial service Hospital: “I go down the 58, 022 names, as well as half-expecting to look for / my in albhabets like smoking. “(Komunyakaa, 129) Another image completes this kind of idea: the poet feels that he is like a home window, that is this individual feels translucent, as if his own personal were mirrored in the selves of all the others participants in the war. All the other comparisons from the self with shadows and smoke, focus on this idea that the author is a eager search for his own style. Thus, as opposed to Sharon Olds’ poem, Facing it seems to adhere to the opposite flight of the do it yourself from a Dionysian state in which the personality is unmarked and integrates with all the other individualities, to the Apollonian condition. The poet person even feels that his own personal is the same with that if the “white vet, ” who have lost his right provide: “The heavens. A plane in the sky. / a white-colored vet’s image floats as well as closer to me personally, then his pale eye / examine mine. I’m a windows. / She has lost his right provide / inside stone. “(Komunyakaa, 129) it of the composition is also representational: the phrase “facing it” clearly refers to the fact the fact that poet must deal with the recollection in the painful experience of the conflict, but in addition to that, the term is derived from the main element word “face, ” which can also indicate individuality.
As a result, the two poems are both organised around the dichotomy between the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy, following a progression of the self coming from individuality and
