At only 33 years old, Ocean Vuong has been making unprecedented waves in the literary world. He has received numerous accolades for his writing, a few of which include the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize for his first poetry collection entitled Night Sky With Exit Wounds, a 2019 MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and the Carnegie Medal in Fiction for his debut novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Time is a Mother is the newest poetry collection to come from the Vietnamese-American author, and it is a profound exploration of how one renavigates life after the death of a parent. Much of Vuong’s work revolves around the relationship he had with his mother, but what makes his voice in this collection ever more poignant is that it was written in the wake of his mother’s death. Vuong’s mother passed away from breast cancer in 2019, the same year that On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was published. In a year that was on track to be his most successful yet, Vuong also experienced the greatest loss of his life. Time is a Mother is the project that he turned to in order to make sense of his new reality. In a segment filmed for PBS NewsHour, Vuong states how life after the passing of a loved one becomes “contracted into two days”: “today, when they are no longer here, and yesterday, the immense, vast yesterday, when they were here.”
“Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker” is one of the most powerful poems of the collection in its examination of time and the inevitability of death. Over a span of five pages, it details all the Amazon purchases made on Vuong’s mother’s account, month by month. The purchase log begins as one would expect for a nail salon worker:
“Mar.
Advil (ibuprofen), 4 pack/Sally Hansen Pink Nail Polish, 6 pack/ Clorox Bleach, industrial size/Diane hair pins, 4 pack/Seafoam handheld mirror
”I Love New York” T-shirt, white, small.”
Over time, however, the reader begins to see evidence of Vuong’s mother’s sickness:
“Apr.
Chemo-Glam cotton scarf, flower garden print
‘Warrior Mom’ Breast Cancer awareness T-shirt, pink and white.”
The purchases of the last two documented months read:
“Oct.
YourStory Customized Memorial Plaque, 10 x 8 x 4 in/Winter coat, navy blue, x-small”
and
“Nov.
Wool socks, grey, 1 pair.”
The information provided is simultaneously lacking in detail as well as overwhelmingly clear in its communication of impending loss.
This kind of subtle yet powerful storytelling is exactly what Vuong excels at. His poems are best presented when coming out of his own mouth, in his own voice for this reason. In a video published by The Wall Street Journal Magazine, Vuong reads his poem “The Bull,” which is the introduction to Time is a Mother. His voice is gentle and it tremors a bit, reflecting the delicate yet commanding nature of his writing. The reader is compelled to lean in close and hold their breath as they take in Vuong’s words so as not to miss a single syllable. His masterful use of figurative language is enhanced by being read out loud, such as with the lines
“He stood alone in the backyard, so dark the night purpled around him.”
His literary voice is just as elegant and unique as his actual one, enveloping the reader/listener into the enchanting atmosphere that only his words are capable of creating.
Vuong’s mastery of subtlety also lends itself to his artful articulation of nuance in this collection. Specifically, Vuong probes at the coexistence of seemingly opposite emotions and occurrences, creating a central theme of the inescapable dualities of life. Time is a Mother is unquestionably a voyage through grief and loss, yet the emotions of joy and hope are threads that run equally as strongly throughout the collection. In the poem “Beautiful Short Loser,” Vuong writes, “Stand back. I’m a loser on a winning streak.” It’s an oxymoron, for someone to be a loser on a winning streak, but this poem is compelling for that exact reason — are there really any black or white facts of life? The final lines of this poem highlight even more opposites:
“Because taking a piece of my friend away from him made him more whole.
Because where I’m from the trees look like family laughing in my head.
Because I am the last of my kind at the beginning of hope.
Because what I did with my one short beautiful life—
was lose it
on a winning streak.”
Vuong dissects emotions and experiences that should be opposites, but rather than highlighting how they conflict, he highlights how they actually lie side-by-side; life and death, beginnings and endings, wins and losses. He uses language to sift through the complexities of life, providing the reader with a new vocabulary in which to reflect upon their own life, oxymorons and all.
Time is a Mother serves as physical evidence of Vuong attempting to move forward from pain rather than drown in it. In the same PBS NewsHour segment mentioned earlier, he also states how refugees and people who are raised by survivors are the ones who “keep wonder and awe closest to their chests.” Even though the death of his mother has brought him previously unimaginable grief, he makes sure to hold on to the joy he has learned from her as well. In “Not Even,” (the poem that holds the line “Time is a mother,” which also serves as the collection’s title) Vuong accentuates the eternal connection he has with his mother, his acceptance of joy even after the death of a loved one, and the inherent duality of life by writing:
“I caved and decided it will be joy from now on. Then everything opened. The lights blazed around me into a white weather and I was lifted, wet and bloody, out of my mother, into the world, screaming and enough.”
