Yusef Komunyakaa

Yusef Komunyakaa
Komunyakaa at the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Awards in March 2012; his book The Chameleon Couch was nominated for the poetry award.
Born	James William Brown (1941-04-29) April 29, 1941 (age 75) (according to U.S. Army discharge papers of 14 Dec. 1966 and other evidence as cited by his former wife Mandy Sayer, although passport supposedly says 1947)
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Colorado State University
Genre	Poetry
Notable awards	Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award; Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Yusef Komunyakaa (born April 29, 1941) is an American poet who teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Komunyakaa is a recipient of the 1994 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, for Neon Vernacular and the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He also received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Komunyakaa received the 2007 Louisiana Writer Award for his enduring contribution to the poetry world.

His subject matter ranges from the black general experience through rural Southern life before the Civil Rights era and his experience as a soldier during the Vietnam War.

According to public records, Komunyakaa was born in 1947 (though in her memoir his ex-wife claims he was born in 1941) and given the name James William Brown, the eldest of five children of James William Brown, a carpenter. He later reclaimed the name Komunyakaa that his grandfather, a stowaway in a ship from Trinidad, had lost. He grew up in the small town of Bogalusa, Louisiana, before and during the Civil Rights era.

He served in the U.S. Army, serving one tour of duty in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and according to his former wife Mandy Sayer he was discharged on 14 December 1966. He worked as a specialist for the military paper, Southern Cross, covering actions and stories, interviewing fellow soldiers, and publishing articles on Vietnamese history, which earned him a Bronze Star.

He began writing poetry in 1973 at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, where he was an editor for and a contributor to the campus arts and literature publication, riverrun. He earned his M.A. on Writing from Colorado State University in 1978, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of California, Irvine, in 1980.