Time is a Mother
From the author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Discover the Sunday Times bestselling collection from the TikTok sensation and author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
'One of the most important poets of his generation'
ANDREW MCMILLAN, author of Physical
'Powerful'
DUA LIPA
'Redefines our idea of what an elegy can do it, what it is for'
ILYA KAMINSKY, author of Deaf Republic
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. Vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong's poems contend with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the value of joy in a perennially fractured American spirit.
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. 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Vuong's powerful follow-up to Night Sky with Exit Wounds does more than demonstrate poetic growth: it deepens and extends an overarching project with 27 new poems that reckon with loss and impermanence. Braiding past and present, Vuong's speakers contextualize personal traumas within larger systems of dehumanization. Gold becomes a key visual motif for capitalist tendencies: "There is sunlight here, golden enough to take to the bank" and "Because everyone knows yellow pain, pressed into American letters, turns to gold." His skillful technique is evident in elegies such as "Dear Rose," which describes a mother's life punctuated by poignant asides ("are you reading this dear/ reader are you my mom yet/ I cannot find her without you"). "Dear T" offers a meditation on the artistic process: "look—a bit of ink on the pad/ & we're running down the street again/ after the thunderstorm/ platelets still plenty// in veins beneath your cheek." Yet there's a new, biting insouciance and self-awareness in Vuong's voice, "Oh no. The sadness is intensifying. How rude," turning his trademark epigrammatic flair to darkly humorous effect: "Because when a man & a man/ walk hand in hand into a bar/ the joke's on us." This fantastic book will reward fans while winning this distinctive poet new ones.
