Time Is a Mother

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 novelOn 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, braveand propulsive, Vuong's poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as wellas the epicenter of the break

The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collectionNight 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 Motheris a return and a forging forth all at once. (From Penguin Press)

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Ocean Vuong is a Vietnamese American poet, essayist and novelist. Vuong is a recipient of the 2014 Ruth Lilly/Sargent Rosenberg fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a 2016 Whiting Award, and the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize for his poetry. His debut novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, was published in 2019.

Interviews with Ocean Vuong

Writers and Company54:41Ocean Vuong embraces life after loss in his new book of poems, Time Is a Mother

In this Canadian exclusive interview, Vietnamese-American poet and novelist Ocean Vuong talks to Eleanor Wachtel about his highly anticipated new collection, a meditation on love, grief, and finding a way forward after the death of his mother.