Judy Juarez

March 26, 2015

Professor Kim Huth
English 305-03
Caught in a Black Hole
One of the first poems we read was Yusef Komunyakaas Facing It and having
understood it as getting lost in the past I came to realize that Wole Soyinkas Telephone
Conversation was also about getting lost but in the present, both fearing either the past or the
future. Both speakers are stuck in a kind of rut because they cannot move forward with their lives
due to circumstances beyond their control. Komunyakaas speaker leads the reader to believe
that he has suffered from being at war in a political sense, while Soyinkas speakers is at war
with his skin color. It is also useful to note that the origin of these two poems is not the same, the
reader should not, in their mind, read them as if they were both written by Americans or poets
living in America. Komunyakaas poem can be localized to take place in Washington, D.C. due
to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while Soyinkas poem can be said to be somewhere in
England due to the Red booth. Read pillar-box. Red double-tiered/ Omnibus squelching tar.
(13) Yusef Komunyakaa and Wole Soyinka share the use of the word black in their poems,
although the connotations that are constructed from the speakers connection or familiarity with
the word black differs through how they come to accept it in terms of race, the comparisons
made throughout the poem, and control that the word black has on their lives.
Acceptance is a big issue in both poems after seeing that each speaker is stuck somehow
in their lives. In terms of race, Facing It is accepting of the fact that the speaker is black
without consequence whatsoever. This is evident in the first line of the poem, My black face

khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:19 AM

Comment [1]: This is an important point,
but I think it gets in the way here in the
intro. The combination of ideas that
surround itthe temporality issue about
and the race issue belowis really
intriguing, and this point gets in the way of
fully connecting those ideas. Save this point
for, perhaps, the later section on
comparisonsthe comparisons they make
to where they are is connected this point
about nationality.

fades. (1) Meanwhile, in Telephone Conversation the speaker has a daily reminder of his skin
color from his surroundings because during that time period, being a person of color meant not
having the best of accommodations. This is evident, in the first time the speaker clearly states
that he is black, By sitting down, has turned/ My bottom raven black (31-32) By looking at
the poem through its entirety, it is interesting to note that the word black is only mentioned
once, all the way in the last lines of the poem, in Telephone Conversations and three times in
Facing It, first couple lines and at the end. A possible conclusion to this is because race has a
much bigger issue in Telephone Conversation than in Facing It. The reaction of people
around the speaker when speaking of black is also noteworthy in that it gives the reader insight
as to how the speaker is revered within the world of the poem. In Facing It people of different
skin colors surround the speaker and none react differently towards the speaker, as far as he is
concerned. The speaker states a white vets image float[ing]/ closer to me (25-26) This is
example that in terms of war experience, he can be seen as an equal to this man because both are
probably at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to pay respect to those lost. In Telephone
Conversation the speaker never really comes face to face with anyone else but it is evident
when he states, Nothing remained/ But self-confession, (3-4) this self-confession refers to
informing his possible future landlady of his skin color. By using the word self-confession the
reader is able to connect that with sin and something negative, this mentality followed by the
confession the speaker tell the landlady I am African (5) makes the reader see that being
African, or dark as replied by the landlady, is cause for sin and therefore self-confession.
Throughout both poems the speakers use comparisons of black to where they are. In
Facing It the reader describes his skin, color, and face, fading, hiding inside the black
granite. (2) It never converts into something other than black it just kind of melts into the

khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:20 AM

Comment [2]: Nice pointgood way to
contrast the poems.

Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall. He associates his face with stone and flesh, stating that he
should take control of his features. Throughout the rest of the poem the speaker is able to see his
shape change and shift as people around him move. In lines 4-5, My clouded reflection eyes
me/ like a bird of prey stating that without the black reflective surface he would not see or
notice himself being stalked by himself. It is through this reflection that he is able to see that he
is not the man he wishes to be, but that he cannot change because he cannot change his past.
Which, coincidentally, is also reflected on the surface of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial via the
names. In Telephone Conversation the comparison of black is a milder version of the word

khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:21 AM

Comment [3]: Can you do a little more
with this image? Why a bird of prey,
specifically?

itself, brown. The first instance that brown is mentioned is when the landlady asks, How dark?
Are you light or very dark? (10-11) The speaker was surprised, to say the least, about the
response he had gotten back from the landlady. Instead of giving him a straight no answer as he
had expected, the landlady asked about the intensity of his skin color, she even had to ask twice.
As readers, we do not really get the spike of adrenaline and guts the speaker gets until later in the
poem when he firmly makes other comparisons that would make the landlady rethink her
questions to him. The speaker compares himself to milk chocolate, a passport, and brunette, all
qualities that make up either something delicious or attributes of a person. But, it is until lines
23-24 that the speaker really speaks up for himself by saying, sitting down, has turned/ My
bottom raven black in which the speaker is essentially flipping the bird to the landlady for
asking all her inconsiderate questions, which implied that being certain intensities of black were
slightly more acceptable.
Control is something that can be taken over from the speakers point of view or the object
the speaker is with. In the case of Facing It the control belongs to the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial because it acts as a bridge that is permanently putting the speaker between the present

khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:22 AM

Deleted: a

and the past. The past is reflected through the black stones with the name carvings. It is evident
the speaker loses control when he states in lines 8-11, I turn/ this waythe stone lets me go./ I
turn that wayIm inside/ the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. No matter which way the speaker

khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:22 AM

Comment [4]: Interesting idea.
khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:22 AM
Deleted: o

turns he will always find himself within the wall. This could signify a fear of the past when he
was in the war or survivors guilt, which is a typical reaction of veterans when they return home
from tours. In Telephone Conversation the control is lost from the speaker when, due to
societal claims, he labels the landlady as a Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled/ cigarette-holder
(8-9) woman and claiming her silence to his confession is proof of Pressurized good-breeding
(7). The speaker is later able to regain control enough to reply back to the landlady and reverse
the silence component of their conversation by stating his shade of black. The telephone booth
holds control over the speakers present and future through living arrangements.
Upon a second review of the poems one can see how the word black is basically seen
in both poems through the titles. Facing It suggest standing up to something, not being scared,
or feeling belittled by something that is occurring which is a great correlation to the analysis of
how the word black is used throughout the poem. In Telephone Conversation having the
word telephone implies that it is not face-to-face, which therefore allows for a less
confrontational conversation than being face to face and having a full reaction of a person. It can
also symbolize cowardice on behalf of either party of said conversation because they rather do it
from a distance. This is also a great parallel to the speakers decision to get a straight denial after
telling the landlady he was black.

khuth KH 3/28/2015 10:23 AM

Comment [5]: Good.

Judy,

The introduction to this paper presents a striking combination of ideas, a coming together of
racial tensions and temporal fears. The suggestion that each speaker experiences black-ness
in a way that has a different effect on his sense of time is quite intriguing, especially in your
following analysis of Facing It. The description of the memorial as a bridge to the past is
lovely and haunting, given the speakers ambivalence toward the stone. Your thesis delineates a
clear organizational structure that the rest of the paper follows, but I think a different
organization would have helped to deepen your analysis in the paper. Moving back and forth
between poems is a good way to demonstrate similarity, as it shows how each poem deals with
a certain issue (like comparisons or control). But your argument, in bringing in the
past/present/future issue, is more complex than this organization can accommodate. It also
forces you to examine lines of the poems in an odd order or go back and re-look at certain
images. Looking at Telephone Conversation first for the problem of present racism, then
moving to Facing It for the problem of past pain even as racism seems to fade into the wall,
might have enabled you to enhance your reading of each poem without sacrificing the
connections you make. But throughout the paper, you make strong points and note fascinating
links between the poems and analytical concepts, creating an evocative reading of black in
these texts.

A 94

kh