My introduction to Yusef Komunyakaa: Neon Vernacular is a sampling of his works from several collections. Gorgeous, raw, powerful language. There were times when I couldn't process the meaning of what I was reading, I simply let the words pour over and through and around me, like an abstract painting that pounds with colors and lines and textures. 
 I discovered the best way to experience Komunyakaa's poetry was to read it aloud- as is the case with most poetry. But his in particular contains such resonant rhythms, unexpected riffs, jolts of symbol and song-the emotions reveal themselves when the voice lends tone to the print. 
 In the time 
 It takes to turn & watch a woman 
 Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off 
 The clothesline, to see her sun-lit 
 Dress ride up peasant legs 
 Like the last image of mercy, three 
 Are drinking from the Mason jar. ' 
 ~Moonshine 
 "My hands are like sparrows, stars 
 caught in a tangled dance of branches. 
 He raises my clothes. 
 An undertow drags me down. 
 His mouth on mind, kissing my mother. 
 -Stepfather: A Girl's Song 
 into our stone water jars 
 this song isn't red flowers 
 crushed under silence. 
 Have we earned the right to forget, forgive ropes for holding to moonstruck branches?