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Time Is a Mother

Time Is a Mother

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Product Description An instant New York Times bestseller!The highly anticipated collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean VuongHow else do we return to ourselves but to fold The page so it points to the good part   In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother’s death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, Vuong’s poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.   The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellow, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all at once. Review “Like Orpheus descending into the underworld, Vuong takes us to the white-hot limits of his grief, writing with visionary fervor about love, agony, and time . . . Aesthetically ambitious and ferociously original . . . Here, he breaks open and rebuilds.” —Esquire, “The Best Books of Spring 2022”“That’s the essence of Vuong’s talent: he alchemizes deeply individual experiences with universal emotions into what is both familiar and new. . . . We need no more proof of Vuong’s importance in the poetic canon.” —Chicago Review of Books“An ode to his mother’s passing, Vuong orbits the contours of grief. . . . the poet’s linguistic ferocity illuminates his mother’s spirit from the rays of memory.” —Associated Press“Aesthetically complex yet emotionally accessible, Time is a Mother at once innovates and affirms the existing poetic tradition. . . . Vuong's portrait of Hồng is both intimate and iconic.” —NPR.org “Time Is a Mother builds on the themes of [Vuong’s] previous books, displaying a new degree of precision and elegant power. . . . Time Is a Mother offers a reckoning with the many versions of ourselves, some altered by time and loss but still true, still open to more life—as a long as we’re willing to risk the depths.” —Nashville Scene  “Vuong’s powerful follow-up to Night Sky with Exit Wounds does more than demonstrate poetic growth: it deepens and extends an overarching project with 27 new poems that reckon with loss and impermanence . . . This fantastic book will reward fans while winning this distinctive poet new ones.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)“[Vuong] focuses on the complicated relationship with his mother in quiet, astonishing lyrics . . . Even the most ostensibly simple moments prove mesmerizing in Vuong's treatment.” —Booklist (starred review)  “Vuong’s second full-length poetry collection grapples with the aftermath of his mother’s death in poems that memorably evoke the stunning immensity of loss.” —Buzzfeed News, 26 Books to Get Excited About This Year “Tender and heartbreaking . . . this collection of poems thoughtfully considers grief, both as an emotion and a sacred act, revisiting the history he shared with his mother and the understanding of family they forged together. Delving back into the visceral themes that made his 2019 novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous a revelation, Vuong traverses the intensely personal and the broadly political with grace and courage.” —TIME, “The Most Anticipated Books of 2022”“These poems glisten and rattle, and they deftly mine a host of diverse topics—sex, privilege, beauty, art, poverty

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