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.

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.

Endorsements

Vuong, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award and the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize and a 2019 MacArthur Fellow, writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment.