We Never Know Poem Review

Kaiana Miller

Captain Kahn

English 411

30 January 2016

Persona Essay

        I think that it is pretty clear that the persona in Yusef Komunyakaa’s poem We Never Know is a soldier in the midst of a war. I personally believe that this soldier is specifically one fighting in Vietnam based on the author’s background. After serving one tour in Vietnam, Komunyakaa was quoted as saying:

Vietnam helped me to look at the horror and terror in the hearts of people and realize how we can't aim guns and set booby traps for people we have never spoken a word to. That kind of impersonal violence mystifies me.

The persona in this poem was crafted with this view in mind. In an attempt to make the violence in war and those who are required to engage in violence seem more personal, Komunyakaa gave certain characteristics to the persona of the poem. Throughout the poem, the speaker elects to humanize an enemy that he has just killed. The traditional bashing of the enemy is not found at all. Instead, the speaker treats the deceased enemy with respect and dignity while describing his experience.

After presumably shooting a member of the opposition, the persona describes the man looking like he was“[dancing] with tall grass for a moment, like he was swaying with a woman”. The persona is making the enemy’s last acts of life sound tender instead of savage. The persona is humanizing the dying moments of a man he has just shot instead of making him appear to be just another casualty of war. The speaker seems almost regretful for the act he has just committed.

The speaker approaches the man he has just fired at, now lying dead on the ground. We do not know how much time passed between the shooting and this encounter. When the speaker eventually reaches the body, “flies had already claimed him.” The speaker describes the formation that the flies are in as “a blue halo”. Again, the speaker uses soft words to describe a man he has just killed instead of harsh ones. The color blue has traditionally been a color of peace and tranquility. The speaker electing to use the term “blue halo” again shows the attempt by the speaker to humanize his enemy.  

After “[pulling a] crumbled photograph from his fingers” the speaker says something that does not seems out of place, “I fell in love.” For the first time in the poem, the speaker is humanizing himself. The violent act he has just committed is no longer impersonal. The speaker could have fallen in love with the person in the photograph, which might have been the newly deceased’s wife, sister, or mother. The speaker could have even fallen in love with this man whom he has just killed. A potentially more frightening explanation is that the speaker fell in love with the act of killing. I do not believe that the speaker fell in love in a romantic way. Rather, he is describing his personal feelings toward another human being instead of a dead enemy.