Ocean Vuong Interview
Ocean Vuong’s interview was insightful and inspiring. Though a very petit man, he carries a very large presence. At the start of the dialogue, Vuong asserts that poetry and writing was connected to him while he was in his mother’s womb. He talks about how his mother would sing in Vietnamese to him while she was pregnant and the correlation between sound, memory, and music. Though written word and reading came much later for him, poetry was always intrinsic to his nature. While discussing his transition from Vietnamese to English, he notes how important the physical world was to him. As a child he was always getting into trouble by his teachers because he was seen as stubborn and resistant. While he was getting reprimanded, he would run his hands down to hallway walls in order to connect himself to the physical world. He talks about how he never understood the meaning of the pledge of allegiance and he admits that he probably couldn’t recite it today if he was asked to do so.
While discussing his transition to writing poetry in English, Vuong describes the history of learning disability in his family. He mentions that his brother, who was also sitting front row to watch him speak, also suffered from a learning disability. He also mentions that great authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Octavia Butler also suffered from learning disabilities. In regards to his disability, Vuong notes that he learned by seeing and moving. While he was reading, he forced himself to read very slowly so he could fully understand and engage with the text. Vuong responds “To me, books are a refuge. I am slower, but I’m okay with that.” Vuong also admits though that the more he moves away from the Vietnamese language to the English language, the more he moves away from his family and his heritage.
When discussing white space, Vuong notes, “White space allows for enactment of stuttering. It felt safe for the poem and it allowed for silences that I felt throughout my life. Everyone is working with a silence and this brought a community of poets working thru the silence. At the end of the day, we are doing the same thing as our ancestors before civilization. We are trying to make meaning out of looking at the stars, telling each other about ourselves, what we care about, what we desire and what we see. Naming what we see is DNA being transferred from one person to another. When I first started writing, I was pressured by the label of a writer. I had a tenuous relationship with it because I was the first in my family. No one knew how to encourage me”
Vuong also describes his feeling as he grows as a writer. When he initially began writing, he was very concerned with the perception of his audience and the reader. Now, however, he admits that he doesn’t write with the reader in mind. He talks about how his uncertainty is not a failure, but on the contrary, a necessity for writing: “In the beginning, I was concerned about my audience… I was concerned about the label of the poet and embodiment of it... If you take question deep into text, imagination, a reader will connect. Every reader has his moment where ‘this is important to me I can only hope it’s important to someone else”. When Vuong wrote Night Sky he was not at all concerned with his audience. He notes that as a queer man, writing and creating an alternative world was essential for survival.
In response to a question about love, Vuong notes that “Love at its best has permission to repeat itself. It never gets old. Love is a sense of familiarity. We always talk about love at first sight. Love is best when it’s mundane, dependable. It’s embodied in everything we do, rather than a pinnacle or an experience of the day. That’s the most valuable. When I think of love, with the capital L, it has durability that you have to upkeep. In my short life, I thought love was obtained and you give and take. But it’s something you make. What does it mean when there’s no love? What cost will you go through? To arrive at that love is a kind of death also. It’s always a sense of danger for me.”
