Some writers need several years to find their voice. Some authors – the vast majority – need a long time to reach readers. This is not the case with Vietnamese-American Ocean Vuong. Literary starburst His first collection of poems, “Night Sky with Exit Wounds”, 2016, hit American readers with great force. Here was a poet who seemed tremblingly vulnerable and standing alone strong at the same time. And – in response to the time’s apparent longing for the autobiographical, where authors should preferably talk about their own trauma from growing up and preferably have a minority background: He had a personal story to tell. And his history is brutal. The Vietnam War still weighs on the days of the 34-year-old, as abuse and violence tend to pass down from generation to generation. AT THE FESTIVAL: Author Fredrik Hagen in conversation with Ocean Vuong during the Norwegian Literature Festival in Lillehammer in May 2023. Photo: Knut Anders Finnset / news Learned a new language Ocean Vuong came to the USA as a refugee when he was two years old. He grew up with his mother and grandmother and was the first in the family to learn to read and write. Both in his debut collection, in the raw novel “På jorda er vi glimtvis vakre” and in the new collection of poems which has now been thoroughly and beautifully re-edited by Mathias R. Samuelsen, he writes to his mother about war, violence, love, language and identity. Sharply aware of his biographical starting point, he problematizes the demands the literary world may have on him in the poem “Not Even”: Challenges the readers Am I not like that, someone who puts people in a box? Do I read the book as a testimony of outsiderness and oppression from a white, heterosexual middle class of which I am a part? Ocean Vuong makes me aware of the challenges in how easy it is to characterize people. In his foreword, the journalist Yohan Shanmugaratnam refers to the aftertaste that has followed the literary success of Vuong and quotes from one of the poems: Yes, Vuong has a rare story, the fat that she is from painful experience. Not least, the band to the mother is important. Now she has gone out of time, she who worked decorating other people’s nails and who was beaten by her husband. Slaga passed her on to the poor son. The band to the mother is therefore not without knots. She may have passed out of time, but for Ocean Vuong there is no time without her. VISIT TO NORWAY: Ocean Vuong visited Framtidsbibliotekskogen in Nordmarka in May, where he delivered the contribution for 2020 to the library which will open in 2114. Photo: Frederik Ringnes / NTB Glossary “Time is a mother” is a comprehensive collection of 137 pages, I reckon with the foreword by Shanmugaratnam and the afterword by the trader Mathias R. Samuelsen. The poem is divided into four stanzas, where the author turns directly to his mother, or to his lover Peter, who is clearly present in the book. Not all the stories – because most poems ask for a story – are equally intuitive or easy to understand. The poems are often long, they flow with a shimmering sensuality reminiscent of texts by Marguerite Duras or Anne Carson. Suddenly there is a break in the rhythm. I have to stop and read again, or I notice a double meaning in the text. This often applies to word divisions and hyphens. Samuelsen has chosen to put the hyphen on the bottom line, and not right after the first part of the compound word, as we usually do in Norwegian. Then it could look like this: Fist to father In the long poem “Künstlerroman” Vuong describes events far back in time as if he were rewinding a film – a DVD – backwards. It is effective. The reading experience becomes almost physical when he writes about his father’s fist pulling back from his mother’s nose: A hope for freedom Yes, it’s about mother. About time, which both comes and goes, but most of all is there, like a self-willed greatness, inexorably and always present in people’s lives. Ocean Vuong write about mora. And about life, as it was and as it was. But first of all, the collection of poems revolves around freedom. This is how the very last poem ends: The power of Vuong’s words lies in the strong feelings, in the rhythm and in the detail he knows. The excitement lies in the depictions of a poor immigrant life in the superpower USA and in the desire to find one’s way in life, despite loss and loss. The strength is that he creates spaces where the readers also have a place. news reports Photo: Samlaget Title: “Time is a mother” Author: Ocean Vuong Re-dictator: Mathias R. Samuelsen Genre: Poetry Publisher: Samlaget Number of pages: 137 Published: 19 May 2023
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“Time is a mother” by Ocean Vuong – news Culture and entertainment
