Time Is a Mother

by Ocean Vuong

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What It’s About

In this second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong writes through grief, queer identity, memory, and love, but never with sentimentality. These poems exist in the aftermath of loss, especially the death of his mother, but they don’t stay fixed in mourning. They wander, rupture, question.

Vuong experiments more here than in Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Some pieces stretch into prose poems or fragment across the page. What connects them all is the ache of being alive and how language can both hold and fail that ache.

My Take

Grief, queerness, and survival - spoken with a whisper that echoes.

This one didn’t hit me all at once. It moved slowly, then snapped me open. There’s vulnerability, but also clarity. Vuong doesn’t explain his pain, he just offers it, clean and precise. Some poems I had to read twice. Some I didn’t understand until hours later. But that’s the point. This isn’t about clarity, it’s about presence.

If You Liked This, You Might Also Like:

• Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

• The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

• Burnings by Ocean Vuong

• On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
  (Yes, you should read them all.)

Where to Find It:

Buy on Amazon • Bookshop.org • Maybe at your local library (WorldCat.org)
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My Asian Era is where literature meets culture — thoughtful reviews, quiet voices, and stories worth slowing down for.