Language and storytelling shape Ocean Vuong's identity, promoting ethical language use for a better future.
Confronting mortality through death meditation, Vuong seeks clarity and mental well-being amidst chaos.
Vuong's narratives transcend violence, celebrating resilience and humanity amidst hardships.
Deep dives
The Power of Language and Artful Living
Language and storytelling are central to Ocean Vong's identity, shaped by his family's Buddhist rituals and immigrant experiences. Vong emphasizes the power of narrative and the communal exchange in storytelling, reflecting on his childhood surrounded by survivors and storytellers. By dwelling on the embodied nature of language and the energy within prose and poetry, Vong challenges the crude and violent language embedded in everyday speech, advocating for a more thoughtful and ethical use of words to shape a better future.
Embracing Impermanence and Death Meditation
Vong's reflections extend to the inevitability of death and the impermanence of life, influenced by his Buddhist upbringing. He shares his practice of death meditation and walking in a cemetery to confront mortality and shed light on life's essence and transience. By centering himself in the face of death, Vong finds clarity and nurtures his mental well-being amid the chaotic world.
Survival, Witnessing Joy Amidst Violence
Exploring the themes of survival and witnessing the aftermath of violence, Vong delves into his family's history shaped by war and displacement. He highlights the complexity of violence and survival in his work, aiming to bear witness to both the scars of the past and the possibilities for joy amid hardships. Through his storytelling, Vong crafts narratives that transcend violence, celebrating the resilience and humanity that persist through generations.
Impact of War and Immigrant Experience on Identity
The podcast episode delves into the impact of war and the immigrant experience on personal identity. The speaker shares a poignant account of encountering the stark reality of war through intense research, witnessing numerous deceased bodies. The experience of seeing bodies resembling their own ethnicity profoundly affects the speaker's perception of self. Moreover, the discussion extends to the complexities of being an immigrant, where the notion of invisibility and the struggle to be seen and recognized play a significant role in shaping one's identity.
Language, Literature, and Reclamation
The episode explores the power of language and literature in reclaiming identity and fostering self-expression. The conversation highlights the importance of language as a tool for inclusivity and self-representation within the queer and communities of color. The narrative emphasizes the transformative nature of language, encouraging innovative ways of expression and communication. Furthermore, the discussion underscores the significance of dialogue, experimentation, and openness in shaping and redefining linguistic norms to promote a more inclusive and authentic discourse.
We are in the final weeks as On Being evolves to its next chapter — in a world that is evolving, each of us changed in myriad ways we’ve only begun to process and fathom. So it felt right to listen again to one of our most beloved shows of this post-2020 world. In fact, Krista interviewed the wise and wonderful Ocean Vuong right on the cusp of that turning, in March 2020, in a joyful and crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. Yet what’s most stunning is how presciently and exquisitely Ocean spoke, and continues to speak, to the world we have since come to inhabit — its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for loss and for finding new life.
Ocean Vuong is a professor in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at New York University. His new collection of poetry is Time Is a Mother. He is also the author of a novel,On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and the poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award. He was a 2019 MacArthur Fellow.
This interview is edited and produced with music and other features in the On Being episode "Ocean Vuong — A Life Worthy of Our Breath." Find the transcript for that show at onbeing.org.
This show originally aired on April 30, 2020.
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