Time is a Mother

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. Vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong`s poems contend with personal loss, the meaning of family, and the value of joy in a perennially fractured American spirit. 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. 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.