Komunyakaa's Pictures of Choice: An Introduction

This issue of Callaloo documents the almost volcanic outpouring of Yusef Komunyakaa's art during the decade since his richly-deserved 1994 Pulizer Prize for Poetry. Included here are Komunyakaa writings that range from a libretto about a slave with the gifts, but not the luck, to pick the lock of freedom, to a play that sets down, in the midst of our sound bite culture, the 3000-year-old dilemmas of Gilgamesh.¹ Around and between these works are excerpts from other librettos, an edgy dialogue on rap, reflections Komunyakaa offers interviewers on everything from the Lacanian unconscious to the Iraq war, and new poems that unfold before the reader like little maps of the human. One might be forgiven for asking, does Komunyakaa sleep? For it is remarkable that, without slowing his output of the sort of poetry for which he is best known, he has produced so much first-class work in other forms.

Another striking characteristic of the poet is brought out by the "Collaborating With" and "Translating Komunyakaa" sections of this issue: this is his ability to inspire a wide variety of artists and intellectuals either to create alongside him, or to carry his words across continents and cultures. The collaborators represented here tell of productive consonances and tensions, or, as in singer Pamela Knowles' case, of shocking epiphanies, of chords that suddenly twine around Komunyakaa's words as one snake does around the other on a caduceus. A number of musicians who have not written essays are represented nevertheless by excerpts from the scores that grew out of their dialogues with the poet, and composer T. J. Anderson appears in these pages engaging in an exchange with Komunyakaa about their operas "Slip Knot" and "The Reincarnated Beethoven."² Readers who want to listen to examples of Komunyakaa in action with musicians, or musicians taking flight from Komunyakaa's words, should consult the sound files that are available at the Callaloo website hosted by Project Muse (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/callaloo).*

Like the collaborators, the translators represented here write about being inspired. But they also write of having to fire words through the slits between languages with the delicacy of quantum experimentalists tracking particles, as they track Komunyakaa's rapid shifts of image and emotional key: how to find the part of Brazilian Portuguese that mirrors the accents of Bogalusa, Louisiana? (Contributor Flavia Rocha wrestles with this problem; most of the other translators grapple with similar ones). How to bring Komunyakaa's flavorings into a language where the dolce stil nuovo of Dante can still be tasted in the words? (Antonella Francini's dilemma). Or, equally tricky, how to keep open the channels through which jazz and jazz poetry entered the Czech language, carrying germs of freedom? (Contributor Josef Jarab takes on this challenge, presenting it as almost a Czech tradition).

Another contributor, Michal Tabaczynski, argues that the goal of translation is to further "the logic of dialogue." Andy Young and Khaled Hegazzi set out to do just that with their timely Arabic translation of Komunyakaa's "How I See Things." One feels, reading the translation section, that cultures are indeed being brought into contact—that a sliver of the Tower of Babel is being fit together again, like some strange whispering antenna.

A rare look at Komunyakaa the student is provided in "Testimonies," the first section of the issue, by Alexander Blackburn, the teacher who ushered Komunyakaa into print. Also featured in "Testimonies" are former students of Komunyakaa (Sascha Feinstein, Vince Gotera, Adrian Matejka) who have gone on to establish their own poetic careers. Feinstein also contributes an essay on "Testimony," Komunyakaa's libretto-ode to Charlie Parker, to the "Analyzing Komunyakaa" section. Throughout "Analyzing," scholars and scholar-poets (including Natasha Trethewey, Laurence Goldstein and Ed Pavlic) help us to navigate the "heart mysteries" and mysteries of history that Komunyakaa explores.

The nature and value of these explorations can best be indicated by glancing at a concrete example—in this case...