/Literary Arts
UC Berkeley Lunch Poems: Yusef Komunyakaa
Event WebsiteAbout
Yusef Komunyakaa’s books of poetry include Dien Cai Dau, Neon Vernacular, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize, Warhorses, Emperor of Water Clocks, and Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth (forthcoming from FSG). His honors include the William Faulkner Prize (Université Rennes, France), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and the 2011 Wallace Stevens Award. His plays, performance art and libretti have been performed internationally and include Saturnalia, Wakonda’s Dream, Testimony, and Gilgamesh. He teaches at New York University.
SF/Arts Curator Insight
Berkeley's noontime series presents Yusef Komunyakaa, whose 1994 collection “Neon Vernacular” won the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Author of nearly twenty collections, his writing explores the Black experience through rural Southern life before the Civil Rights era and his experience as a soldier during the Vietnam War. His plays, performance art and libretti have been performed internationally.
Evan Karp
SF/Arts Curator
UC Berkeley Lunch Poems