Komunyakaa vividly evokes his childhood in Bogalusa, Louisiana, once a center of Klan activity, and later a focus of Civil Rights efforts. He portrays a child s dawning awareness of the natural and social order around him, rhythms of life in the community, the constant struggle for survival in the face of poverty and racism, the adolescent s awakening sexuality, the beginnings of the poet s awareness of his life and community as it exists in the context of history, and his emerging understanding of his own identity."