Night Sky with Exit Wounds

By: Ocean Vuong

Synopsis: “Ocean Vuong’s first full-length collection aims straight for the perennial “big”—and very human—subjects of romance, family, memory, grief, war, and melancholia. None of these he allows to overwhelm his spirit or his poems, which demonstrate, through breath and cadence and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the fiercest hungers.”

Genre: Adult Poetry

Content Warnings: Depression, Discussion of 9/11 Tragedy, Domestic Abuse, Drowning, Gun Violence, Homophobia, Mention of Drug Overdose, Mention of Suicidal Ideation, Murder, Racial Slurs, Violence Against Animals, War

Why You Should Read This Book: When I’m reading fiction and non-fiction part of what I consider a sign that the book is good is that it doesn’t take me very long to read it–the more interested the text makes me, the quicker I plow through. The opposite is true for poetry. The longer it takes me to read a whole collection, the better I consider the collection because it means I had to step away from the book multiple times to just sit with the poems. I think it took me a good eight to ten sittings to make it through the 80-ish pages of poetry in Night Sky with Exit Wounds.

Most of the time when I had to step away from this book it is because the last poem I read is one that left me aching. I have no other words to describe the emotions Night Sky with Exit Wounds brought forth in me. It dug out a wound in my chest, which it left weeping and aching, and I had to step back from the poem to allow myself to fully experience the words and heal the wound it gave me. One time I told my sister that I kept having to step away from the book, and she wanted to know why, so I had her read the last poem I did–“Seventh Circle of Earth”–and she went, “I get it now.” These are not the lighthearted children’s poems you can fly through. Vuong has ripped out his guts and written them on the page, and that is what we’re reading here.

The other times I had to step away from this book were to take a moment and just sit in awe of Vuong’s craft. His use of form is so incredible. There were several times I reread a poem after the first read-through just to get a better grasp on how the form affected the way it was read. If you, like me, go a little bit crazy for poetry forms, you’re going to lose your mind of Ocean Vuong. Not to bring up the same poem twice, but his choice for form in “Seventh Circle of Earth” was honestly mind-blowing. I just. I can’t even put it into words.

Poetry fans will definitely want to check out Ocean Vuong’s work, especially if they like the poems that really dig into the meat of life. I highly, highly recommend.

My Rating: 5/5 stars