The Vietnamese-American poet’s second collection, written in the aftermath of his mother’s death, illustrates what it means to be out of control
The parent-child relationship has been the nucleus of 33-year-old Ocean Vuong’s writing. The American poet’s family fled Vietnam to a refugee camp in the Philippines before migrating to the US. His father abandoned them. His mother worked in a nail salon. In one of the most compelling poems in his Forward prize-winning 2017 debut collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, he imagines dragging his father’s body out of the sea, turning him over, and seeing a gunshot wound in his back. His 2019 novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, is a series of letters from a Vietnamese-American son to his illiterate mother — a tale that mirrors much of Vuong’s own life. Time Is a Mother is his second poetry collection, and was written in the aftermath of his mother’s death.
There’s something about Vuong’s writing that demands all of your lungs. The succinct line arrangement and absence of full stops in poems such as Dear Rose force you to breathe heavy, as throughout this episodic poem Vuong talks tenderly to his dead mother about her journey as an immigrant from Vietnam to the US. He fills the poem with vivid imagery: flying bullets, corpses, Wonder Bread dipped in condensed milk and the fermentation of fish. He also wonders if she’s still illiterate:
Time Is a Mother is published by Jonathan Cape. To support The Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
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