Yusef Komunyakaa (born James William Brown; April 29, 1941)[2] is an American poet who teaches at New York University and is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

[2] 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 has since used these experiences as the source of his war poetry collections Toys in a Field (1986) and Dien Cai Dau (1988), the title of which derives from a derogatory term in Vietnamese for American soldiers.

More attention came with the publication of Dien Cai Dau (Vietnamese for "crazy in the head"), published in 1988, which focused on his experiences in Vietnam and won the Dark Room Poetry Prize.

In 2004, Komunyakaa began a collaboration with dramaturge and theater producer Chad Gracia on a dramatic adaptation of The Epic of Gilgamesh.

He views his own work as an indirectness, an "insinuation":[8] Komunyakaa married Australian novelist Mandy Sayer in 1985.

In a 2018 interview titled "The Complexity of Being Human,"[10] Komunyakaa addresses the careful use of language and influences of some of his most famous works such as "Facing It.

[11] Komunyakaa also pays his respects to early influences such as Langston Hughes, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Phillis Wheatley.

[11] In a 2010 interview by Tufts Observer,[12] Komunyakaa when asked to list the individuals who most influenced him, he names Robert Hayden, Bishop, Pablo Neruda, and Walt Whitman.