Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong's first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial "big"—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers.

Poet Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytellingOn Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born -- a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam -- and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one's own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

Ocean Vuong returns with an achingly beautiful novel about chosen family, unexpected friendship, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive.One late summer evening in the post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on the edge of a bridge in pelting rain, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia, who convinces him to take another path. Bereft and out of options, he quickly becomes her caretaker. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond, one built on empathy, spiritual reckoning, and heartbreak, with the power to alter Hai’s relationship to himself, his family, and a community at the brink.Following the cycles of history, memory, and time, The Emperor of Gladness shows the profound ways in which love, labor, and loneliness form the bedrock of American life. At its heart is a brave epic about what it means to exist on the fringes of society and to reckon with the wounds that haunt our collective soul. Hallmarks of Vuong’s writing – formal innovation, syntactic dexterity, and the ability to twin grit with grace through tenderness – are on full display in this story of loss, hope, and how far we would go to possess one of life’s most fleeting mercies: a second chance.

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 at once.

“I was born because someone was starving…” ends one of Ocean Vuong’s poems, and in that poem, as in every other of his poems, Ocean manages to imbue the desperation of his being alive, with a savage beauty. It is not just that Ocean can render pain as a kind of loveliness, but that his poetic line will not let you forget the hurt or the garish brilliance of your triumph; will not let you look away. These poems shatter us detail by detail because Ocean leaves nothing unturned, because every lived thing in his poems demands to be fed by you; to nourish you in turn. You will not leave these poems dissatisfied. They will fill you utterly.” -Roger Bonair-Agard, author of Tarnish and Masquerade and Gully“Vuong’s perfectly crafted poems are intensely personal, and intensely universal. What he has to whisper to us sears our eyes and minds like a branding iron, burning. Whether his words are of wars past or present, they are inescapably palpable. This is the work of a gifted cantor, singing of pain, singing of healing.” -Grady Harp, Amazon Top Reviewer and critic“Ocean Vuong is a poet of rare lyrical gifts and urgent stories to tell. “Memory,” he writes, “has not forgotten you.” No, it hasn’t forgotten the burning city or the taste of blood nor the hanging of rags or the violence of war. Vuong’s poems are testament to the enduring power of poetry and its place in this human universe.” -Hoa Nguyen, author of Hectate Lochia and As Long as Trees Last

Almost all of the titles in this beautiful "little" book bleed into the poems that follow them—so goes Ocean Vuong's way of piercing at his subconscious until we are aware of it as part of our collective unconscious. What this poet sees on the street, in a blizzard, or even while studying an apple reminds me of those dreams we have in common: dreams in which we are falling but never touch ground, dreams in which we are naked in the presence of men suited for our ruin.—Jericho Brown, PleaseAnyone who has already sensed that “hope is a feathered thing that dies in the Lord’s mouth,” should get their hands on NO. Honest, intimate, and brimming with lyric intensity, these stunning poems come of age with a fifth of vodka and an afternoon in an attic, with a record stuck on please, with starlight on a falling bomb. Even as Vuong leads you through every pleasure a body deserves and all the ensuing grief, these poems restore you with hope, that godforsaken thing—alive, singing along to the radio, suddenly sufficient.—Traci Brimhall, Our Lady of the Ruins

Please Note The individual books included in this listing will be dispatched as per the original UK ISBN and UK edition cover image Titles In This The Emperor of Gladness [Hardcover]Night Sky With Exit Wounds [Paperback]Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous [Paperback]Ocean Vuong 3 Books Collection Set (The Emperor of Gladness, Night Sky With Exit Wounds & Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous):The Emperor of Gladness [Hardcover]:College dropout Hai doesn’t know how to face the future until a chance meeting with elderly widow Grazina changes his life, in this achingly beautiful novel about chosen family and second chances One summer evening in the town of East Gladness, Connecticut, nineteen-year-old Hai stands on a bridge, ready to jump, when he hears someone shout across the river. The voice belongs to Grazina, an elderly widow succumbing to dementia. Over the course of the year, the unlikely pair develops a life-altering bond. Night Sky With Exit Winner of the 2017 T. S. Eliot PrizeWinner of the 2017 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection A Guardian / Daily Telegraph Book of the YearPBS Summer RecommendationAn extraordinary debut from a young Vietnamese American, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a book of poetry unlike any other., Steeped in war and cultural upheaval and wielding a fresh new language.Ocean Vuong On Earth We're Briefly This is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family''s history that began before he was born. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family''s struggle to forge a new future.\

La madre de Ocean Vuong se llamaba Lê Kim Hồng. Su nombre significa la flor y el color. En Estados Unidos, la llamaban Rose. Trabajaba en un salón de manicura. Murió en 2019 de cáncer de mama.En El tiempo es la madre, Vuong transita su pérdida; la herida que, dice, «nunca se va a curar». El duelo, la violencia enquistada en el lenguaje, y el trauma de los apegos evitativos en la familia son algunos de los temas centrales de este segundo y esperado poemario. Una obra que demuestra, una vez más, la calidad literaria del autor de Cielo nocturno con heridas de fuego y En la tierra somos fugazmente grandiosos.