2007 Louisiana Writer Award Recipient 

Yusef Komunyakaa

Bogalusa native and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa (koh-muhn-YAH-kuh) is the winner of the 2007 Louisiana Writer Award. He is being honored by the Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana for his distinguished and on-going contributions to Louisiana’s literary and intellectual heritage.

Yusef Komunyakaa was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana, on April 29,1947. His poetic interests are founded upon and driven by a wide range of influences that include the poetry of the Bible; the cultures of Africa as captured in blues, jazz and gospel music; the poetry of Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, and the Western canon in general. Of particular consequence are his childhood experiences of Bogalusa and later, the Vietnam War; during the war, he reported events from the front lines and edited a military newspaper as an “information specialist” in the army.

Komunyakaa credits reading James Baldwin’s Nobody Knows My Name as the catalyst for inspiring him to write; he began writing poetry while still in high school. His principal books of poems include Gilgamesh: A Verse Play (with Chad Gracia, 2006); Thieves of Paradise (1998), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Neon Vernacular: New & Selected Poems 1977-1989 (1994), which received the Pulitzer Prize and the Kingsley-Tufts Poetry Award; Dien Cai Dau (1988), which won The Dark Room Poetry Prize; and I Apologize for the Eyes in My Head (1986), winner of the San Francisco Poetry Center Award.