Born in Saigon, poet and editor Ocean Vuong was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned a BA at Brooklyn College (CUNY). He lives in Queens, New York, where he serves as managing editor for Thrush Press. In his poems, he often explores transformation, desire, and violent loss.
By Ocean Vuong
yellow plastic
black sea
eye-shaped shard
on a darkened map
no shores now
to arrive — or
depart
no wind but
this waiting which
moves you
as if the seconds
could be entered
& never left
toy boat — oarless
each wave
a green lamp
outlasted
toy boat
toy leaf dropped
from a toy tree
waiting
waiting
as if the sp-
arrows
thinning above you
are not
already pierced
by their...
By Ocean Vuong
There’s a joke that ends with — huh?
It’s the bomb saying here is your father.
Now here is your father inside
your lungs. Look how lighter
the earth is — afterward.
To even write the word father
is to carve a portion of the day
out of a bomb-bright page.
There’s...
