Ocean Vuong
Love · Longing
Ocean Vuong
A poet and novelist whose writing brings tenderness into conversation with memory and grief.
Born 1988 · Vietnamese American poet and novelist
Their literary world
Ocean Vuong writes across language, memory, love, and survival. Born in Vietnam and raised in the United States, he returns to migration, family, inherited trauma, desire, and the tenderness between people who may struggle to understand one another.
His poetry combines intimate feeling with inventive form. Silence, the body, and remembered scenes become ways to approach identity. Tenderness in his work is not an escape from pain; it is a way of meeting vulnerability without pretending that uncertainty and loss have disappeared.
Featured reading · Read the published work
Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong
Read Vuong’s complete poem in The New Yorker, or listen to the poet read it. Its tenderness gathers force as the poem unfolds.
The author’s published poem and audio are hosted by The New Yorker.
Read and listen at The New YorkerA passage
“Ocean, don’t be afraid.”Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong · from Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016)
A way into the passage
The speaker addresses himself by name, turning the poem into an act of inward attention. The small gesture of self-address makes room for tenderness without claiming that fear or the past has vanished.
Essential works
Poem · 2016
Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong
A poem of self-address where memory, fear, and the possibility of self-compassion meet.
Poetry collection · 2016
Night Sky with Exit Wounds
A collection engaging family, migration, war, desire, and the shaping of identity.
Novel · 2019
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
A son writes to his mother, who cannot read the letter, about family history, language, and inherited pain.
A question worth exploring
Can we offer ourselves the tenderness we hope to receive from another person?
A question to carry with you
Can tenderness change how we speak to ourselves?
An editorial introduction by Flute & Forge Studio.