I’ve been a fan of Ocean Vuong’s poetry for a while now, and was delighted to hear that my Netgalley request for the ARC of his latest poetry collection “Time is a Mother” had been accepted!! Thank you very much to the publisher for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
“Time is a Mother” is an exquisite collection of raw poems, exploring the themes of grief, identity, the American Dream and culture, in an extremely experimental and spiritual way. By page 5, I was already tearing up. All of the poems are experimental in format, and whilst I was taking notes and annotations of this collection, I wrote that Ocean Vuong crafts poetry like divinity, a statement I stand by now.
Vuong possibly references the traditional poem, ‘the Ballad of Mulan, where it concludes with the line “When a pair of rabbits run side by side, who can distinguish male from female?” I think Vuong alludes to this in the poem “You Guys”, especially in the line “the rabbits are lovers or sisters sometimes// it’s hard to tell gender// from breathing”. The theme of gender conversation recurs throughout the collection, and through Ocean Vuong’s other works, which supports my theory that this is what the line is in reference to. These poems also allude to the Genesis creation and to Greek mythology, building such vivid imagery of large-scale events to reflect such personal, intimate feelings.
I reread so many of the poems after I finished the collection. They were just so beautifully crafted, and memorable. My two favourite of the lines were “Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I imagine Van Gogh singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah’ into his cut ear & feeling peace” and “I want to take care of our planet because I need a beautiful graveyard”. Both lines made me put down my e-reader just to process the weight and beauty of what I just read.
I would rate this collection five stars. It has became one of my favourite books I have read this year, and plan to purchase a physical copy myself to re-read and annotate. Thank you so much again for the publisher and to Netgalley for sending me this ARC. If you enjoyed this review, be sure to order ‘Time is a Mother’ for the 5th of April, 2022.
Dorothy's Bookshelf 