Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean VuongMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Put your big boy pants on for these poems; this is Poetry. Vuong uses imagery and words to create moods and feelings like an impressionist artist uses color and texture to create the idea of a picture. It isn't always clear what he is talking about, and more times than not, I wished for my old poetry group I was in in high school to help untangle the Gordian knot of words and understand the poems better. Because I felt certain there was stuff I just wasn't smart enough to untangle on my own. But even so, I could appreciate his images, both through the use of words and often through the placement of the words on the page. "Aubade with Burning City" was hauntingly beautiful about the evacuation in Soth Vietnam in 1979. In "Daily Bread" and "Logophobia" he explores the idea of creating truth with what you write. There are love poems, and poems of self-exploration. There are poems about his heritage and his family and poems about his hopes for the future. These are poems that demand to be read several times, and poems that morph with each reading. Although I wish I could understand the narrative of some of the poems more, I do understand that this is good poetry.
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How sweet. That rain. How something that lives only to fall can be nothing but sweet. Water whittled down to intention. Intention into nourishment.
...For hunger is to give/ the body what it knows/ it cannot keep...
Say autumn despite the green/ in your eyes.
My thrashing beneath you/ like a sparrow stunned/ with falling.
Say amen. Say amend.
...That a boy sleeping/ beside a boy/ must make a field/ full of ticking. That to say your name/ is to her the sound of clocks/ being turned back another hour/n & morning/ finds our clothes/ on your mother's front porch, shed/ like week-old lilies.
...It's not/ about the light--but how dark/ it makes you depending/ on where you stand.
....Maybe we pray on our knees because god/ only listens when we're this close/ to the devil...
...How we live like water: wetting/ a new tongue with no telling/ what we've been through...
...They say the sky is blue/ but I know it's black seen through too much distance.
Spilled orange juice all over the table this morning. Sudden sunlight/ I couldn't wipe away.
....Like how the spine/ won't remember its wings/ no matter how many times our knees/ kiss the pavement...
loneliness is still time spent/ with the world...
...For hunger is to give/ the body what it knows/ it cannot keep...
Say autumn despite the green/ in your eyes.
My thrashing beneath you/ like a sparrow stunned/ with falling.
Say amen. Say amend.
...That a boy sleeping/ beside a boy/ must make a field/ full of ticking. That to say your name/ is to her the sound of clocks/ being turned back another hour/n & morning/ finds our clothes/ on your mother's front porch, shed/ like week-old lilies.
...It's not/ about the light--but how dark/ it makes you depending/ on where you stand.
....Maybe we pray on our knees because god/ only listens when we're this close/ to the devil...
...How we live like water: wetting/ a new tongue with no telling/ what we've been through...
...They say the sky is blue/ but I know it's black seen through too much distance.
Spilled orange juice all over the table this morning. Sudden sunlight/ I couldn't wipe away.
....Like how the spine/ won't remember its wings/ no matter how many times our knees/ kiss the pavement...
loneliness is still time spent/ with the world...
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