A review by inherbooks
Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong

5.0

“if we make it to shore, he says, I will name our son after this water. I will learn to love a monster.”

Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Ocean Vuong.



A poetry collection that has me reeling, drowning in as much violence - violent redemption, healing - tender, visceral, suffering - loud, seamless, downpour, love - forbidden, forced, irate, breaking (tearing) and coming together, whole, wholly, unholy, holiest in all ways. Ocean's mastery of words, imagery, symbolism transcends and transports any reader into a corner without walls, without bounds, to tend to wounds that make us human, an ode to our being and connected (isn't that what we're all looking for? connection?). I'm not writing this to convince you to read this collection. I write to remind myself of this exact moment, and feeling, as I turned the last page for the first time of many times – to capture a first I never want to forget and a taste, full-bodied, briny, and sharp I will continue to savour.