profile OCEAN VUONG
35 POETS & WRITERS^
with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific
American Center to launch the Center
for Refugee Poetics at the Asian Arts
Initiative, an organization and venue
in Philadelphia, with a day of activities
exploring poetry and the refugee expe-
rience. Its next symposium has yet to
be scheduled, but the center hopes to
expand the reach of the conversation,
which began with the Southeast Asian
refugee diaspora.
W
ITH the publication of an
acclaimed debut comes
the inevitable expecta-
tion of the second book.
Shortly after the release of Night Sky
With Exit Wounds, as the accolades
came pouring in, Vuong was courted
by a number of literary agents, who
suggested he write prose. But Vuong
hesitated moving on from his previous
project when deep inside he knew, he
says, that the first book, “an eighty-
five-page paperback, did not answer all
of my questions. How does it contain
everything I have been asking all of my
life, like what does it mean to be a queer
American body, or poor, or a refugee?”
So he decided to investigate those con-
cerns further in a different genre, to
find out if he could learn anything new.
While on a residency in Italy, cour-
tesy of the Civitella Ranieri Founda-
tion, Vuong found himself browsing
the castle’s extensive library, where
he connected to other poets who also
wrote prose, such as Anne Carson and
Maggie Nelson. “I realized then that I
wasn’t out in the sea by myself,” Vuong
says. “Poets have been there and thrived
with the sentence and the paragraph.”
Vuong chose to explore fiction writ-
ing because he wanted “the book to be
grounded in truth but realized by the
imagination. That’s why the opening
chapter reads like an essay.” He also
credits his education as a poet with the
skills necessary to move into prose. In
both he could “orchestrate an entire
world,” he says. Nonfiction, he notes,
would have presented issues he wanted
to avoid: “As a person of color, when
it comes to memoir, we are seen as
anthropological conduits, a vehicle of
exotic information. I wanted to insist on
agency as an artist, with the freedom to
embellish, and then claim it as my own
rendition.”
An early role model was Maxine
Hong Kingston, who had set out to
write the great American novel but
whose book The Woman Warrior
(Knopf, 1976) was presented as non-
fiction. He decided not to erase that
effort and succumb to the pressure to
write a memoir. “I wanted to insist that
these lives—yellow, brown, poor—
inspired me to create art as I wanted
to create it, not as others wanted me
to create,” he says.
Page after page, he allowed memory
to shape the fabric of the fictional nar-
rative. He understands the impulse of
readers to want to make direct con-
nections between the writer and the
writing, and he expects many will also
want to draw lines between the poetry
book and the novel, but that’s beyond
his control. He’s more invested in his
right to invent. “Writers of color are
not supposed to have the musculature
of an imagination,” he says. “When we
use it, we’re being bold, and that’s what
I want to do—be bold, make things up.
I’m not here to give people the juicy
bits of my community. I’m not a jour-
nalist; I’m an artist.”
That said, he set out to write a book
with a clear mission: “I wanted a voice
in the conversation about what it means
to be a body inhabiting this incredibly
complicated, violent, and precarious
country.” His inspiration was the com-
munity he hailed from: “When I moved
to New York City and I’d tell people
I came from Connecticut, there was
this perception that I had come from
a place of wealth. But I was a refugee.
So I wanted to expand on working-class
identity in a place where people lived
rich and diverse lives. There are im-
migrant populations from all over the
world in Connecticut. I want to shift the
telescope and show that this world has
always existed.”
Two years and four drafts later, a
manuscript of the complete novel made
its way to Frances Coady from the Aragi
Agency. “I explained to Frances that I
was a poet, that a poet doesn’t submit
anything until it’s finished,” he says. For
Coady, it was worth the wait: “When I
read an early draft of On Earth We’re
Briefly Gorgeous, I experienced one of
those glorious privileged moments in
publishing when you know that what
you are holding in your hand will affect
readers in the most profound ways you
can imagine.” The novel was sold to Ann
Godoff at Penguin Press in April 2018.
Though the book was acquired for
a notable sum, Vuong doesn’t want to
dwell on that. He’s got more immediate
concerns, like his family’s well-being—
“the distress signals arrive and I have
to answer,” he says—as well as his own.
Diagnosed with agoraphobia, an anxiety
disorder in which one experiences fear
of places and situations that might cause
panic, helplessness, or embarrassment,
which at times keeps him from per-
forming the most basic functions, like
going to the grocery store, he has had
to rely on his partner, Peter Bienkowski,
for support. A former copyright lawyer,
Bienkowski quit the profession to help
Vuong through the demands of travel
and presentations. He drives Vuong to
and from the university so that he can
teach his courses and meet committee
obligations, because, as Vuong admits,
“I failed my driver’s test five times.” On
difficult days, Vuong stays home, at the
cost of canceling appearances or meet-
ings. “People have been surprisingly
understanding,” he adds.
As for his own expectations with
the release of his novel, Vuong doesn’t
care to fantasize about its future or the
rewards that might come with further
success: “I don’t see myself as a success
story even though I’ve experienced
success. Everything I learned along the
way was a strength. If I didn’t have my
communities, that many consider bro-
ken or forgotten, I wouldn’t be where
I am. I don’t want to be a sob story or
anybody’s project. I want to show that
you can have pride no matter where
you come from and joy without for-
saking the pain it took to get here.”
