1st Quarter 2025:
Vuong is the author of the poetry collections Time Is a Mother (2022) and Night Sky With Exit Wounds (2016), the winner of the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize, and the chapbooks No (2013) and Burnings (2010), which was an Over the Rainbow selection by the American Library Association.
In May 2025 he will release his new novel The Emperor of Gladness. His novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (2019), was longlisted for the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction, the Carnegie Medal in Fiction, the 2019 Aspen Words Literacy Prize, and the PEN/Hemingway Debut novel award; the novel was also shortlisted for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and won the 2019 New England Book Award for Fiction.
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| "Take your time with these poems and return to them often." - Washington Post |
The New York Times bestseller
Time Is A Mother simply wowed me!
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.
“In this highly anticipated second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong ruminates on time. It becomes a character of its own, both an obstacle and motherly, something that can nurture and hold. Written in the aftermath of his mother’s death, Vuong’s poems are raw with grief and darkness, but there are radical moments of joy and resilience even through that. Through these poems, Vuong sings loud and clear of everything worth living for and discovering..."
--NPR, "Books We Love"
--NPR, "Books We Love"
Selecting a single favorite poem of his was hard because I have so many. But I think this particular poem about the U.S. evacuation of South Vietnam is truly brilliant. I had to look up the word "aubade" and found the word's origins interesting given the colonial history of Vietnam. A song or poem that greets the dawn, or a morning love song, aubade can also refer to a song or poem about lovers parting at dawn. The form originated in medieval France.
Aubade with Burning City
by Ocean Vuong
South Vietnam, April 29, 1975:
South Vietnam, April 29, 1975:
Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas” as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon.
Milkflower petals on the street
like pieces of a girl’s dress.
May your days be merry and bright ...
He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips.
Open, he says.
She opens.
Outside, a soldier spits out
his cigarette as footsteps
fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. May all
your Christmases be white as the traffic guard
unstraps his holster.
His hand running the hem
of her white dress.
His black eyes.
Her black hair.
A single candle.
Their shadows: two wicks.
A military truck speeds through the intersection, the sound of children
shrieking inside. A bicycle hurled
through a store window. When the dust rises, a black dog
lies in the road, panting. Its hind legs
crushed into the shine
of a white Christmas.
On the nightstand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard
for the first time.
The treetops glisten and children listen, the chief of police
facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola.
A palm-sized photo of his father soaking
beside his left ear.
The song moving through the city like a widow.
A white ... A white ... I’m dreaming of a curtain of snow
falling from her shoulders.
Snow crackling against the window. Snow shredded
with gunfire. Red sky.
Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls.
A helicopter lifting the living just out of reach.
The city so white it is ready for ink.
The radio saying run run run.
Milkflower petals on a black dog
like pieces of a girl’s dress.
May your days be merry and bright. She is saying
something neither of them can hear. The hotel rocks
beneath them. The bed a field of ice
cracking.
Don’t worry, he says, as the first bomb brightens
their faces, my brothers have won the war
and tomorrow ...
The lights go out.
I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming ...
to hear sleigh bells in the snow ...
In the square below: a nun, on fire,
runs silently toward her god —
Open, he says.
She opens.
4th Quarter 2024:
“i don’t pay attention to the world ending.
it has ended for me many times
and began again in the morning.”
― salt.
― salt.
“you can not remain a war
between what you want to say
(who you really are)
and what you should say
(who you pretend to be).
your mouth was not designed
to eat itself. – split”
― salt.
between what you want to say
(who you really are)
and what you should say
(who you pretend to be).
your mouth was not designed
to eat itself. – split”
― salt.
One of Waheed's most influential works is her debut poetry collection, "salt.," which was self-published in 2013. In addition to "salt.," Waheed has continued to publish thought-provoking poetry collections, including "nejma." Her unique voice and unapologetic exploration of personal and universal truths have earned her a dedicated following and cemented her status as a leading voice in modern poetry.
https://www.poetrysoup.com/nayyirah_waheed/biography
Here are a few more of my favorite lines from Waheed's poetry:
“never trust anyone who says
they do not see color.
this means to them you are invisible.”
― salt.
they do not see color.
this means to them you are invisible.”
― salt.
“cry wild.
you have probably never
cried wild.
but, you know what doors
feel like.
you have
an intimacy with doors
and that is killing you
- - break”
― Salt
you have probably never
cried wild.
but, you know what doors
feel like.
you have
an intimacy with doors
and that is killing you
- - break”
― Salt
“you
see your face.
you
see a flaw.
how. if you are the only one who has this face.”
— the beauty construct”
― Salt
see your face.
you
see a flaw.
how. if you are the only one who has this face.”
— the beauty construct”
― Salt
“grieve.
so that you can be free
to feel something else.”
― nejma
________________
so that you can be free
to feel something else.”
― nejma
________________
2nd Quarter 2024:
After reading over these lines written by Etel Adnan two or three times and reflecting on them
the more I was in awe of their summation of the times we are living in --
and they left me feeling so helpless and afraid for the future of our planet.
While some gardener plants his
red, white, and blue
flowers
some angel moved in with me
to flee the cold and warned me
temperatures on earth
are rising
while we wear upon us some
immovable frost
and, in sadness,
everyone carries his dying as
a growing shadow.
from The Spring Flowers Own:
“This unfinished business of my / childhood”
“This unfinished business of my / childhood”
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| Etel Adnan 1925-2021 |
Poet, essayist, and painter Etel Adnan was born in Beirut, Lebanon. The daughter of a Greek Christian mother and a Syrian Muslim father, she spoke both Greek and Arabic with her parents, but French became her primary language upon enrolling in a French Lebanese Catholic school at the age of five. While working for the French Information Bureau, she attended at the Ecole Supérieure de Lettres de Beyrouth, where she composed her first poems. Adnan also studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard University.
Adnan taught philosophy at San Rafael’s Dominican College from 1958 to 1972, where, in connection with the ongoing Algerian war of independence, she began to resist the political implications of writing in French. To address this conflict, she shifted the focus of her creative expression to visual art and began making abstract oil paintings. In response to the Vietnam War, Adnan began to write poems again, though in English rather than French.
thankfully
I am not at the mercy of men
I am not at the mercy of men
since trees live in my fantasies
men and trees long for fire
yet, call for the rain --
Who can explain?
Who can explain?
I love rains
which carry my desires
away to the oceans.
which carry my desires
away to the oceans.
from
The Manifestations of the Voyage
Influenced by Rimbaud, Lyn Hejinian, and Jalal Toufic, Adnan’s poetry incorporates surrealist imagery and powerful metaphorical leaps with language-based and formal experimentation, using unexpected and experimental techniques to address the nature of exile and political, social, and gender-based injustice. Adnan is the author of numerous books of prose and poetry, and is also a painter, sculptor, and weaver whose art has been exhibited internationally. Her many collections of poetry include Shifting the Silence (2020); Time (2019), winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize; Surge(2018); Night (2016); Seasons (2008); There: In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and the Other (1997).
She lived in Sausalito California and in Paris with her partner, the artist and writer Simone Fattal. Adnan died in November 2021.
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1st Quarter: JANUARY, 2024
Born in Kirkuk in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1967, Kajal Ahmad began
publishing her remarkable poetry at the age of 21. She published four books of
her poetry (1999-2004), each of which earned her a considerable reputation for her brave,
poignant, and challenging work throughout the Kurdish-speaking world.
During the War in Iraq and as her own Kurdish people's
plight dominated the News she began to receive international notice as her
poems were translated and published globally. The
English-language Handful of Salt, a translated collection, was released in 2016.
Her writings reflect her
commitment to preserving Kurdish culture, the liberation of Kurdistan and to
gender equality.
An excerpt from
In This Country of Terror
I Love the Streets More Than Its Men
I need a street
Empty of bloodstains,
A street that has never seen
Or known terror.
Let it be flawless, let it be flawless, flawless
Like the sex of these girls
they killed so unjustly.
they killed so unjustly.
Let it be long, let it be long, long
Like their agony.
I challenge you to read the entire poem and not sense her inner pain and anguish.
In addition to writing poetry, she also works as a journalist where she is able
to write social commentary and analysis, particularly on women's issues and
politics. She refuses to wear the
veil and writes about a conservative culture that restricts women's life
choices and the contradictions inherent in her homeland's cultural norms.
Because of this, Kajal's lifestyle has repeatedly drawn criticism in
conservative circles of her society.
The following poem of hers made me think of this current era I am witnessing - one where Lies are spun into Truth, and former Truths are now Lies. Where our heroes and great men of yesterday are, today, gleefully insulted by small men pretending to be great, stupid men with no honorable past brought to prominence by ego-hungry social media influencers who praise dictators. With their warped views on history the sheep who follow these men lead us on the frightening journey toward the inevitable repeating of the past.
Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad
My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters
filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my heart
and instead of sweat
I exude glass.
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| Steel engraving of Walt Whitman |
"Song of Myself"
[Read about the poem's history]
Walt Whitman
is considered one of the most influential poets in American history.
Whitman is often called the father of free verse. His work was controversial in his time, particularly his 1855 poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described by some as obscene for its overt sensuality.
"Song of Myself" was included in that collection.
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I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware
I sit content,
I sit content,
And if each and all be aware
I sit content.
I sit content.
One world is aware
and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And
whether I come to my own to-day
or in ten thousand or ten million years,
whether I come to my own to-day
or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now,
or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.
My foothold is tenon’d and mortis’d in granite,
I laugh at what you call dissolution,
For I know the amplitude of time.
I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself,
the latter I translate into a new tongue...
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I'm glad you stopped in to browse and,
as always,
Enjoy looking through my Library
Enjoy looking through my Library
_______________
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