Thus, Sharon Olds' poem progresses through a series of interesting images, which analyze the relationship between the Apollonian and the Dionysian states, that is, from the pure individuality to a state of merging with the other and overstepping the boundaries of the self. Yusef Komunyakaa's poem has a similar structure. In his Facing it, the author rememorizes an experience from the Vietnam War. The poem starts abruptly with the image of the poet's black face that fades "hiding inside the black granite: "My black face fades, / hiding inside the black granite. / I said I wouldn't, dammit: No tears. / I'm stone. I'm flesh. / My clouded reflection eyes me / like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning."(Komunyakaa, 129) the image that opens the poem is thus already very representative: the author seems to lead a tense struggle with his own self. The black face that fades inside the black granite is obviously a symbol of the war as a transforming experience that throws a shadow over the self or the individual, merging it with the others. In the war, there is obviously no distinction between one person and the other, the individuality cannot be preserved. When he tries to recollect his experience, the poet finds that he can hardly distinguish his own self from the others, and he even starts to look for his own name on the huge list of the victims registered at the Memorial Hospital: "I go down the 58,022...
" Communing with nature is the ultimate Dionysian act; the poet's subsequent writing of the communion is the Apollonian gesture that tempers this Dionysian indulgence. What each of these three poems has in common is the fact that they are based around images of human figures confronting the Dionysian motifs of descent and ascent via nature. Each poem represents a struggle between the Apollonian and Dionysian extremes, a struggle that is
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