Night Sky with Exit Wounds Author:Ocean Vuong In his haunting and fearless debut, Ocean Vuong walks a tightrope of vulnerability and reflects upon his family in exile, a reverential queer love, and the personal adoption of a sometimes inexplicable nation. Vuong's poems show, through breath, cadence, and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the most necessary of h... more »ungers.
Praise for Ocean Vuong:
"[Vuong] takes from Pound the ability to eternalize a moment." --POETRY Magazine
"An important new voice in American poetry."--Beloit Poetry Journal
"What this poet sees on the street, in a blizzard, or even while studying an apple reminds me of those dreams we have in common: dreams in which we are falling but never touch the ground, dreams in which we are naked in the presence of men suited for our ruin."--Jericho Brown
"Vuong shows us the human spirit at its most vulnerable, as it tries to heal yet never does so completely. We come out better because of it."--DiaCritics
Torso of Air
Suppose you do change your life.
& the body is more than
a portion of night--sealed
with bruises. Suppose you woke
& found your shadow replaced
by a black wolf. The boy, beautiful
& gone. So you take the knife to the wall
instead. You carve & carve
until a coin of light appears
& you get to look in, at last,
on happiness. The eye
staring back from the other side--
waiting.
Ocean Vuong is the author of two chapbooks: No (YesYes Books, 2013), and Burnings (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010), as well as his debut full-length collection, Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016).« less