TIME IS A MOTHER - OCEAN VUONG

Always got to make sure there is time for some poetry. I remember liking Vuong’s novel, On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous and figured I’d grab this, a book of poems, when I spied it at the library. Perhaps because the other poems I am reading at this point are basically the same Hart Crane joints again and again, this collection did not hit very hard for me. I feel like if it’s poetry, I need more verbal pyrotechnics. Astonishing phrases, mind-bending metaphors and sticky utterances. Real bars. There is some of that here, I liked:

“enough to live

            & die alone

with music on”

And 

“Maybe i can build a boy/out of the sileces inside maybe/we can cease without dying fuck/without tears falling/into the truckstop urinal”

Even, “Do you know how many hours I’ve wasted watching straight/boys play video games?” is funny, and does speak to how erotic and sexual Vuong often is, an aspect of his I feel is strangely not talked about. And while I appreciate a Lil’ Peep reference, mostly these poems just didn't’ really take off for me. Much of it is about the death of his mother but even those poems didn’t really arrest me. They all sort of slid off. I would certainly read another novel from Vuong but I don’t think his poetry is something I need to keep up with.