Time Is a Mother

by Ocean Vuong

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Call number

PS3622.U96 T56

Genres

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Penguin Press (2022), Edition: 1st, 128 pages

Description

Fiction. Poetry. LGBTQIA+ (Fiction.) HTML:An instant New York Times bestseller! The highly anticipated collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean Vuong How else do we return to ourselves but to fold The page so it points to the good part In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother�??s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We�??re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, Vuong�??s poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break. The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellow, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member Narshkite

I don't read a lot of poetry, and often feel that while I understand the conventions of poetry, I am missing whatever is required to feel the work. So with that disclaimer here are my thoughts.

I loved Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, his language and once so stunningly beautiful even when

reflecting on ugly, sometimes repellent, things transported me. Vuong does the same thing here, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. When Vuong frontally addresses his grief (over so many things) he is at his best. He does that in my favorite poems, Not Even, Nothing, Kuntslerroman, Dear Rose, and American Legend. There is not one form where he focuses his efforts, rather he slides from form to form, and plays around with the forms he chooses to boot. I for one would have appreciated a little less messing around with form, fewer hyphens would have been nice, but it was not a major matter IMO. For me, the measure of success of individual poems in this collection is how squarely he addresses the jumble of grief and pain and fear in his head without connecting it to other things. I felt that the more he tried to connect those feelings with larger concerns about the planet (this comes up a lot and I thought it rarely worked) or humanity at large the less successful the work became.

A worthwhile collection, but not as transcendent at his last.

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LibraryThing member brangwinn

Vuong’s second book of poetry deals with the way the passage of time impacts relationships between people. Both sad and happy, violent and gentle, his poems reflect such experiences as shoveling snow with a loved one in “Nothing”. He draws on his own experiences, but the themes explored are

universal.

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LibraryThing member Daumari

3.5 rounded to 4. Unfortunately, I feel like poetry is wasted on me, but I can appreciate the medium for processing grief on death of his mother and feeling through other complicated personal relationships.

Overdue, so a quick read for me with little time to dwell on it.

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