Answer:
Read the poem “Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa, then choose one of the following questions to respond to:
Based on the poem, what do you think was most responsible for the speaker’s survival: luck, skills, a higher power, or something else?
Choose one image from the poem that you found particularly powerful. Explain what makes this image compelling to you.
What can you infer about how the speaker feels about his time as a soldier?
Write a paragraph explaining your answer. Support your response with details from the text.
Thanks
Yusef Komunyakaa
Poet Yusef Komunyakaa served as a soldier in the US Army during the Vietnam War. In this poem, the speaker expresses gratitude for the forces—both physical and spiritual—that he thinks kept him alive during war.
Thanks for the tree
between me & a sniper’s bullet.
I don’t know what made the grass
sway seconds before the Viet Cong
raised his soundless rifle.
Some voice always followed,
telling me which foot
to put down first.
Thanks for deflecting the ricochet
against that anarchy of dusk.
I was back in San Francisco
wrapped up in a woman’s wild colors,
causing some dark bird’s love call
to be shattered by daylight
when my hands reached up
& pulled a branch away
from my face. Thanks
for the vague white flower
that pointed to the gleaming metal
reflecting how it is to be broken
like mist over the grass,
as we played some deadly
game for blind gods.
What made me spot the monarch
writhing on a single thread
tied to a farmer’s gate,
holding the day together
like an unfingered guitar string,
is beyond me. Maybe the hills
grew weary & leaned a little in the heat.
Again, thanks for the dud
hand grenade tossed at my feet
outside Chu Lai. I’m still
falling through its silence.
I don’t know why the intrepid
sun touched the bayonet,
but I know that something
stood among those lost trees
& moved only when I moved.