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3.5 

Time Is a Mother

By Ocean Vuong
Time Is a Mother by Ocean Vuong digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

"Take your time with these poems, and return to them often.” —The Washington Post

The New York Times-bestselling 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 personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in 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 the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, these 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 fellowship, 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.

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1542 Reviews

3.5
FormulaicMemorableOriginalExplicit sexual contentWar violenceUnpredictableBeautifulEvocative imageryHarshBeautifully-written
““Did I tell you? I come from a people of sculptors whose masterpiece was rubble. We tried.” Reasons for Staying and Almost Human were my favorites, but Ocean could write anything and it would make me want to lay on the floor in silence for a few hours afterwards.”

About Ocean Vuong

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the American Book Award and the MacArthur “Genius Grant,” he has also worked as a line cook, tobacco harvester, nursing home volunteer, and fast-food server, the latter becoming inspiration for The Emperor of Gladness. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently splits his time between Northampton, Massachusetts, and New York City. Vuong's newest novel, The Emperor of Gladness, will be published by Penguin Press on June 3, 2025.

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