Time Is a Mother

Description

Time Is a Mother is the second collection of poems by Ocean Vuong, published in 2022. The collection is deeply intimate and evocative: Vuong wrestles to navigate themes such as grief, loss, memory, and healing-ways that specifically implicate the aftermath of his mother’s death. The poems pass through the emotional topography of mourning even while joyfully inspecting the mysteries of life, identity, and resilience.

In Vuong’s lyrics and silences, deep emotional depth is revealed. The language reflects thoughts on his Vietnamese-American heritage, queer identity, and the painful, transformative processes of facing life’s challenges all through vivid imagery and raw vulnerability, which the poems discuss with regard to the passage of time and legacy of love in the intertwining of life and death.

Time Is a Mother is a further continuing of Vuong’s beautiful poetic meditation on the human experience, coming as it does after his remarkable novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and earlier poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds. It is distinguished by its thoughtful reflection on grief as well as the passage of time but also for its strong, visceral emotional resonance.