Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born — a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam — and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation. At once a witness to the fraught yet undeniable love between a single mother and her son, it is also a brutally honest exploration of race, class, and masculinity. Asking questions central to our American moment, immersed as we are in addiction, violence, and trauma, but undergirded by compassion and tenderness, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is as much about the power of telling one’s own story as it is about the obliterating silence of not being heard.

With stunning urgency and grace, Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between disparate worlds, and asks how we heal and rescue one another without forsaking who we are. The question of how to survive, and how to make of it a kind of joy, powers the most important debut novel of many years.

About the author: Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have also been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's, The Nation, New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, he currently lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous is his first novel. (lilithcat)… (mere)

The author of thirteen books of poetry, Jean Valentine continues to delight and surprise new readers and adoring fans. As Adrienne Rich proclaimed, Valentine’s “is a poetry of the highest order, because it lets us into spaces and meanings we couldn't approach in any other way.” Hear these poems read by poets they continue to inspire, including Michael Burkard, Mark Doty, Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Jody Gladding, David Hinton, Joan Larkin, Anne Marie Macari, Jane Mead, Elizabeth Metzger, Dennis Nurkse, Mary Ruefle, Patrick Rosal, Gerald Stern, Brian Teare and Ocean Vuong. (rmharris)… (mere)

Wednesday, February 6, 7:30 PM Greenlight Poetry Salon Hosted by poet Angel Nafis Featuring Ocean Vuong, author of Burnings Jessica Greenbaum, author of The Two Yvonnes Ishmael Islam, author of Meet At Greene

Created by Greenlight’s own Angel Nafis, Greenlight Bookstore’s quarterly poetry series, the Greenlight Poetry Salon, welcomes locally and nationally celebrated poets. Tonight’s reading features three amazing poets with diverse backgrounds and strong ties to Brooklyn. Vietnam native and Brooklyn resident Ocean Vuong is the author most recently of the chapbook Burnings; a Kundiman fellow, he is also the recipient of an Academy of American Poets prize and six Pushcart Prize nominations. Passionate Fort Greene dweller Jessica Greenbaum was a Discovery / The Nation prize winner and recipient of PEN's Emerging Writer Award. Her second poetry collection, The Two Yvonnes, was chosen by Paul Muldoon for Princeton’s Series of Contemporary Poets. Brooklyn native Ishmael “Ish” Islam is the current NYC Youth Poet Laureate, and a champion of the youth poetry scene through Urban Word NYC. Meet at Greene is his first poetry collection.

Location: Street: 686 Fulton Street City: Brooklyn, Province: New York Postal Code: 11217 Country: United States (tilføjet fra IndieBound)… (mere)