Langston Hughes And Yusef Komunyakaa And My Black Face...

Langston Hughes and Yusef Komunyakaa, much like any two poets when compared, are very different. However, they composed two poems that are very similar. Langston Hughes’s poem, â€Å"Theme for English B†, and Yusef Komunyakaa’s, â€Å"Facing it†, can be compared in many different ways. The most outstanding similarity of the two poem’s, is the fact the speakers are outsiders and very much unlike everyone else in the poem because of their race. With the quotes â€Å"I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem† (Hughes 7), and â€Å"My black face fades† (Komunyakaa 1), It is very clear both writers want their audience to know early on in the poems that each are speaking from an African-American perspective. In the early to the middle of the 1900’s when the poems were written, things were different for a person from African-American decent, in Hughes case it was college and in Komunyakaa’s case it was the Vietnam war. Bei ng of African-American decent is a minority that most people wouldn’t understand because of the history in their race. Both poets have endured experiences of oppression in the past that have effected their writing styles. Other similarities in the poems include the use of the same literary techniques such as narrative structure, symbols, metaphors, and tone to prove that the speakers are different and unlike the majority because of their past experiences in the past. Both poems use the speakers past to further capture their feelings and emotion towards each subject. Hughes and