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Read this excerpt from the poem, "Facing It," about the Vietnam War, by Yusef Komunyakaa:


I turn this way—I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference. I go down the 58,022 names, half-expecting to find my own letters like smoke. I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the b00by trap's white flash. Names shimmer on a woman's blouse but when she walks away the names stay on the wall. Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats close to me, then his pale eyes look through mine. I'm a window. He's lost his right arm inside the stone. In the black mirror a woman's trying to erase names: No, she's brushing a boy's hair.


Describe the aesthetic impact the author intends for this excerpt to have on the reader. Be sure to use specific details from the text to support your answer.

User Guiccbr
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Answer: Referencing artistic elements in a poem or a story is a choice authors make to educate their audiences about artistic expression. Yusef Komunyakaa uses imagery and color to educate his reader through artistic elements.

Komunyakaa uses imagery in his poem like “ I see the trap’s white flash” to connect the reader to a time of war and emotional pain. He also uses color to convey a sense of reality while creating a feeling of a dream like state at the same time. For example, “ brushstrokes flash, a red bird’s wings cutting across my stare.”

Step-by-step explanation:This small moment at the memorial is a glimpse at a larger picture. Komunyakaa speaks about this one day but this one day represents such a horrific and traumatic situation, one that has left scars on many people.

User Arbme
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From the excerpt above the best answer would be:

The aesthetic impact describes what it was like to be a veteran during the Vietnam war, and the experiences of the person taking care of people. In one of the lines that says: “Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's wings cutting across my stare. The sky. A plane in the sky. A white vet's image floats close to me, then his pale eyes look through mine.” It follows how the veteran talks about the death of the victims and how they will be remembered, the description of the plane may even describe bobs that were falling from the sky.

User Puneet Lamba
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