Day 31
ocean
There is a man, a writer, a poet, an immigrant, by the name of Ocean Vuong. He writes with the most vulnerable syntax, choosing and arranging words into something so vulnerable, but also so sharp that they cut you up inside. Like a photo of a child in a war zone, so exposed and full of shock, which also cuts us when we see it. Reading so many things has given me a good strong reader’s intuition, and I sense that I can only understand this writer’s meaning, his experience and his language, through the vulnerability that he awakens in me with his words.
This last week, the show/podcast On Being aired an interview between Ocean and the show’s host, Krista. They talk about his experience as an immigrant and as a poet, but what Ocean has to say about language and how it affects us is a Masterclass in the metaphysics of words and how we use them. Listening to him explain and expound on language gave me the same feeling that writing sometimes does; when writing makes me feel tender and bruised and more than a little afraid. But, then also how that same writing turns as I release it into feelings of bravery and confidence.
In the interview, he says “the children of immigrants end up betraying their parents, in order to subversively achieve their dreams.” And because he speaks with such vulnerability, I hear the ache in his voice as he emphasizes certain words and feel the traces of guilt and anxiety and also the matter-of-factness. I think of all the things I’ve felt compelled to say that expose my own discomfort while also speaking the truth. As this sentence hangs in the pause that follows his voice, I feel too the courage that expands out from the words.
Also, reading a poem written in the voice of his mother, I hear this: only a mother can walk with the weight of a second beating heart. …and I just break and sob. All this emotion on my morning commute.
This name of his: Ocean—is it not also the best word to describe his words and their force? You swim out there into his phrases, and try to tread water; but, these words are currents too strong to swim against, so you finally, maybe even suddenly and with joy, let go and fall into the deep, deep art of vulnerability.
