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.