Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong pdf download

Details of Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong Book

Book Name: Time Is a Mother
Authors: Ocean Vuong
Pages: 85
Genre: Poetry
Publish Date: 5 April 2022
Language: English

Book Review:

Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong He's put out a poetry collection before. Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which I absolutely loved and then he put out his debut novel, a work of fiction, that is On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

I love that work as well. I also love this, but if we're going to put it on a scale of comparing his work, because he's such an incredible writer it's kind of hard not to.

He's kind of created a this beautiful existence of poetry and fictional narrative all of his own with the way that he uses prose and verse I'd have to say that On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is one of my favorite books, but of his work that's like number one and then his poetry collections would be second.

This I liked a bit less than Night Sky With Exit Wounds, but it's still a great read. So in this book he's exploring the loss of his mother and as well as other topics that he's explored, which is him being gay, him being Vietnamese.

I feel very much at times he's discussing how he's viewed or the narratives that he comes up against from others in America, being an American, Vietnamese American. Some of the subjects that he comes up against, and so one of them that I wanted to discuss.

I'm going to read what he wrote, because it's best said in his own words Okay so Ocean Vuong writes, "Once at a party set on a rooftop in Brooklyn for an artsy vibe. A young woman said sipping her drink, you're so lucky you're gay plus you get to write about war and stuff I'm just white pause I got nothing.

Laughter glasses clink." So what he's exploring there is this myth of what someone who is a part of a minority group or someone that's been through hardship should be able to accomplish.

It kind of reminds me of Alicia Elliott's work, A Mind Spread on the Ground, because in that book she writes that she was...

Actually, before I say that if you're not familiar with that work, it's a work of non-fiction, it's a memoir and Alicia just explores mental illness, being a person of the indigenous community, and she came up against something similar when she was in a writing program a white person turned to her and just said, like oh well because you're indigenous you're gonna easily get into another writing program, which is just not the case.

I don't really know where that minority myth comes from, if I could call it that, but it's this idea that if someone's been through great suffering, they're somehow at an advantage, which is just absolutely ridiculous.

So I felt like that's in a similar vein with what's being discussed in Ocean Vuong's poetry here is that there's someone that looks at the tragedies of his family being torn apart from their land in Vietnam due to the war, that took place there and then placed over here in America to have to start over, if that's even possible, and I don't know.

I think it's, I don't even know what to say about someone looking at someone else and saying well, because you've been through all these struggles are being put in a position, because you're gay where there's struggles in society now you could just like, rub your fingers together and make art easier.

It's just so ridiculous, but that stood out to me and kind of rubbed me the wrong way, but I think that's what's really great about Ocean Vuong's work is that he could take moments and kind of put a mirror up to like, the shittiness of humanity.

I'll just say that. That's just, I'm not as poetic as him to say any better. There's one other moment that I really loved in his work. So I'll just read it and then talk about it and that is on page five.

There's a poem called, Snow Theory. Okay and Ocean Vuong writes "One by one the house is turned off their lights. I lay down over her outline to keep her true. Together we made an angel.

It looked like something being destroyed in a blizzard. I haven't killed a thing since." So throughout the novel. Throughout the novel? So throughout Ocean Vuong's work of poetry, he uses snow,

I think as a symbolism of death, which I've only seen used in films and I think it's also discussed in literature that way.

So that really stuck out to me, but what I really loved about this moment is I felt like when he's creating a snow angel, I feel in a way that's his attempt to preserve his mother.

At least that's how I took it, but if if I'm wrong please correct me. I felt like he's just trying to hold on to her existence through this action and I thought that was really beautiful, really loving and also he describes it in a violent way, right?

Murdering something and it's just something to think about. I don't want to say too much more about his work other than to say that he's really great.

I don't know how he does it. I'm just gonna have to study his work more. He has a way of jumping through time from moment to moment and I saw that really exhibited in, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, but he does it again so well in his poetry collection here and I really appreciate that.

My only critique, and I don't even know if I should call it critique, but I'll just say that because also I'm not an expert at poetry. I'm loving reading certain poetry collections, but it's still not my go-to genre.

If you will at times, I think there are like two separate poems in here where Ocean Vuong switches from a poetic narrative to more of a prose narrative and I'm just not sure what he's doing there.

I don't know if that's considered experimental or maybe I just don't understand. So if anyone has anything to say about those two, more prose prone, I don't know what you want to say, poetry pieces, I'd like to hear what you have to say about it.

I just didn't, I wasn't sure how it fit into what's going on, but again I think I'm just going to have to reread this particular work to kind of get a better grasp on it. So yeah, I did like it.

I didn't love it as much as I did On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous and Night Sky With Exit Wounds, but it's still a great read and I'm definitely going to feel that way throughout his entire career because everything he writes is absolutely beautiful.

Also read: Badge of Honor by Hailey Edwards

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