While Vuong’s Vietnamese heritage vibrantly colors his work in “Night Sky with Exit Wounds,” it is most powerful when it comes out through the narrative of his father. Yet, despite this violent imagery, the narrator withholds judgment on the father, conveying an almost childlike devotion to or understanding of the parent. Here, even the gentle image of the father kneeling at his son’s bed is marred by his clutch tightening and the violent language surrounding the gun. The way the barrel, aimed at the sky, must tighten To be asleep as his father’s clutch tightens. The page turning as he wraps his arms around I looked through it, I would see the end of thisĪt the boy’s bed, his grey overalls reeking of gasoline These poems tend to include violent images, like the father taking a chainsaw to a kitchen table or chasing the mother around with a knife, and sometimes it includes gentler images, like in this segment from “Always & Forever”: Often, the poems that touch on fatherhood show the speaker taking a more passive role watching the father’s erratic behavior, but not commenting on the morality of said behavior. What I will point out, however, are the consistent themes surrounding fatherhood in “Night Sky with Exit Wounds,” specifically distance, violence and also devotion on the son’s part. As it is poor poetry etiquette to read the poet’s life into their work, unless directly stated, I’m not going to assume that every time a father is mentioned in a poem it is referring to Vuong’s father, or an exact account of events that took place. The father figure seeps through nearly every poem, shaping the arc of the collection.
In its entirety, “Night Sky with Exit Wounds” is deeply personal, historically informative and breathtakingly beautiful.
Much of his work in that collection centers on his Vietnamese heritage and identity as seen through his parents’ experiences and his own experiences, flavored with his perspective as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. He published his highly anticipated debut novel, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” last June, but it was his first full-length poetry collection, “Night Sky with Exit Wounds,” that elevated him to public esteem. Vuong was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and immigrated to Hartford, Connecticut, along with six relatives when he was just 2 years old, after spending a year in a Philippine refugee camp.
The life of Ocean Vuong, a 30-year-old poet, is a well of experience from which he draws beautiful, critically acclaimed poems, boasting reputable awards like the Pushcart Prize and the T.S.
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