Night Sky with Exit Wounds

Ocean Vuong’s first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial “big”—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers.

ocean vuong has been my favourite poet ever since i read "someday i'll love ocean vuong". his poetry has a peculiarly vivid air surrounding it, spurred on by the lyricism of his verse. he has a beautifully potent way of writing.
in this collection, his poems time and time again return to the contradiction of sex, violence and religion, sometimes all at once as in "ode to masturbation". (it's a similarity i noted to [b:A Streetcar Named Desire|12220|A Streetcar Named Desire|Tennessee Williams|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1389153133s/12220.jpg|142449], perhaps a peculiarity of gay men. some sort of code perhaps, passed down from bear to faery, or maybe just the conditioning of homosexuality with shame and the criminality gay sex show more still holds.) show less

This award-winning collection of poetry showcases Vuong's talent for brutal imagery and evocative wordplay. Though I can't say how many, if any, are truly autobiographical, it appears that the poet draws on his own family history and experience as immigrants from Vietnam after surviving war, and his own experiences as a gay man, for much of his material. "Aubade with Burning City," for example, starts with a note that Armed Forces Radio gave the code to evacuate Saigon in 1975 by playing "White Christmas" and proceeds to intersperse lines from the song throughout in a brilliant, intense poem intertwining a man and woman in a hotel with war in the city. "Self Portrait as Exit Wounds" was another favorite of mine, using the symbolic show more language of a bullet's path to bring us through several intense scenes. I didn't always "get it." I had trouble with some of the more abstract language, trying to figure out what he was describing. One poem, with numbers scattered down the page and the language actually in notes at the bottom of the page, had a form that distracted me from really appreciating it. Overall, I'm glad I read it. show less

This collection was filled with words often beautiful and picturesque. The beauty only amplifying the pain, allowing the violence to become more palpable.
The formatting of each poem was different and at times experimental. There was an entire poem done only in footnotes and it was wonderful!
There was a lot of repeated symbolism throughout the book that tied the entire thing together. The sparrow and the torch reminding you of things already experienced and ones yet to come. And then again, repetition was used as a form of melancholic humor: "Grandma said in the war they would grab a baby, a soldier at each ankle, and pull...just like that." "It's finally spring! Daffodils everywhere. Just like that." p. 68
Each poem was relatable in show more one way or another like waking from a bad dream and checking with a loved one "just in case".

Some of my favorite lines:

"If you must know anything, know that the hardest task is to live only once." p.14

"In the museum of the heart there are two headless people building a burning house." p.32

"Don't we touch each other just to prove we're still here?" p.44

"Silly me. I thought love was real & the body imaginary."p.49

"holy water smeared between your thighs where no man ever drowned from too much thirst." p.62

"Sometimes I ask far too much just to feel my mouth overflow." p.68

"I build a life and tear it apart & the sun keeps shining." p.76

"Remember loneliness is still time spent with the world." p.83

"The difference between prayer and mercy is how you move your tongue." p.84 show less

Although I often felt his raced over my head, it still blew me away with its beauty and left me breathless. I felt his words in every cavity of my body as I read, and couldn't put it down, reading it from cover to cover in one sitting. His writing is some of the most stunning i have ever read and I want to read everything he has ever written.

Just so gorgeous. Each piece is so beautiful, different from one another but feels similar. I was worried it might read too closely to other stuff, but this is deeply different from On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous in a lot of ways, while also feeling enough that it's clear they were written by the same person, in the best of ways. Just so many of the poems were so good, honestly picking one or two is really hard. "Seventh Circle of Earth" is incredible, though, as was "Ode to Masturbation."

I honestly don't know what to say beyond this is the best collection of poetry I've read this year. I don't know how to adequately portray how good this book is. Vuong's use of language, violence, love, grief, anger, and memory is so exacting, so powerful...if you love poetry, read this. Now.