Emotional Ocean

     Ways in which Ocean Vuong is unlike most of the poets you've heard about:

     1) He's alive. 

    2) He was born in Ho Chi Minh City and fled Vietnam with his family as a child, eventually landing in Hartford, CT.

    3) He's openly gay.

    4) He wrote a best-selling novel.

    5) His first name is a body of water.

     Actually, his mother originally named him "Beach," but changed it because in her accent it seemed like she was calling her son "Bitch."

    Vuong's mother was a big inspiration for his novel. He wrote it in the closet -- literally, not figuratively. 

 

          

         Here's a poem in which Vuong imagines his mother and father coming together in a landscape scarred by the nation he would soon call home.

     A Little Closer to the Edge

     Young enough to believe nothing

     will change them, they step, hand-in-hand,

     into the bomb crater. The night full

     of  black teeth. His faux Rolex, weeks

     from shattering against her cheek, now dims

     like a miniature moon behind her hair.

     In this version the snake is headless — stilled

    like a cord unraveled from the lovers’ ankles.

    He lifts her white cotton skirt, revealing

    another hour. His hand. His hands. The syllables

     inside them. O father, O foreshadow, press

    into her — as the field shreds itself

     with cricket cries. Show me how ruin makes a home

    out of  hip bones. O mother,

O minutehand, teach me

how to hold a man the way thirst

holds water. Let every river envy

our mouths. Let every kiss hit the body

like a season. Where apples thunder

the earth with red hooves. & I am your son.