His own body as a recipient of pain and abuse fuels his capacity to receive and deliver both harm and tenderness to others with his body (On Earth Were Briefly Gorgeous). A helicopter lifting the living just out of reach. This poem does a beautiful job of putting down humankinds most depressing thoughts into moving, thoughtful verse. Red sky. Such a happy song, full of longing for love and Christmas trees and eggnog, is the one the U.S. used as a code for evacuation. The speaker is fascinated with these contradictory and tense dynamics of the body, and he contemplates that his parents' passion is a necessary pretext for his own creation. Enter Twitter. ", Other aspects of the poem that warrant attention are the repeated use of the apostrophe and the appearance of moon imagery. The room takes shape around him and everyone goes about their day, doing what they need to do. "A Little Closer to the Edge" Summary and Analysis. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. The Vietnam War is rightly considered by many, including the speaker of this collection, to have been a time of unimaginable destruction, death, and violence. My mother was also illiterate. After all, with no snake to tempt the woman, she and the man are free to reproduce within the cratersomething Eve and Adam were not able to do in the Garden of Eden. The treetops glisten and children listen, the chief of police facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola. flickering in black mud. Another intriguing implication behind the body image in Vuongs poetry is that he is channeling the influence of Walt Whitman into his writings. was coming & I ran. In Threshold, the opening poem for the collection, the speaker is on his knees asking to be spared. The image of the kneeling prayer then makes another appearance in Prayer for the Newly Damned. These include but are not limited to examples of enjambment, caesura, imagery, and similes. The anaesthetic from which none come round. May all your Christmases be white as the traffic guard unstraps his holster, his fingers running the hem of her white dress. Thus no bombs = no family = no me. All the while, despite our best efforts, death exists. Throughout this poem, Larkins speaker focuses on the inevitability of death and what exactly it is that he fears about it. He doesnt believe that any argument or state of mind can dispel the solid, inescapable fear thats at his heart and the heart of every other living, sentient thing. Throughout this poem, Larkins speaker takes the Anne Azzi Davenport is the Senior Coordinating Producer of CANVAS at PBS NewsHour. Larkins mother died around the period that he finally returned to this poem and chose to finish it, something that some scholars cite as a source of inspiration. The word father returns as the second most frequent word throughout the entire collection, eclipsing the appearance all female relatives. The song moving through the city like a widow. Consisting of 3,372 words, the first section of the collection is made up of 12 poems. Enter your email address: Tweets by @StructurexStyle!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Considering the complexity and ambiguity of this past is one thing that gets the speaker thinking about his own ability to act violently and tenderly in the present. The fact that these identical words bookend the poem both carries the finality of a religious incantation and gives the impression of a chance occurrence or coincidence, a complex feeling that is pulled off here to exquisite effect. In this archival edition of the podcast, the editors discuss two poems by Ocean Vuong. Divided into three untitled sections, Night Sky with Exit Wounds showcases a linear thematic progression that more or less mirrors Vuongs life history and his self-perception development from childhood until present day. Claiming to be a devout Buddhist in a 2013 interview, Vuong frames the religious identity in his poetry with his spiritual life. Dawn arrives in Larkin's "Aubade", but the speaker of Larkin's poem wakes up and watches day break by himself. And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true. GradeSaver "Night Sky with Exit Wounds Aubade with Burning City Summary and Analysis". South Vietnam, 29 April 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving. For example, Death and the Moon by Carol Ann Duffy, Death is Nothing At All by Henry Scott Holland, and Death, be not Proud by John Donne. Itll be like anaesthesia from which hell never wake up. "My Father Writes from Prison" Summary and Analysis, "Aubade with Burning City" Summary and Analysis. Webwith gunfire. Web[POEM] Aubade with Burning City - Ocean Vuong South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins White Christmas as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon. Vuong brings his American identity to the forefront with his meditation on gender, queerness, love, the physical body, and intimate eroticism. The city in Vuongs poetry is an eternal battlefield, a site of war rife with helicopter[s] in April 1975 that forced his family out of their home country. This confusion and general disarray in the poem's images and tone is also mirrored by the poem's form, which flows freely across the page in stanzas of irregular length. The truth of the matter is there is so much great poetry out there, its a wonder were not stumbling over it more often than we are. Viet-Thanh Nguyen, author of the Pulitzer-winning novel The Sympathizer calls Vuong the Walt Whitman of Vietnamese-American literature. Its a poem Ill be reading again and again for years to come, and if you read it, too, Im confident youll say the same. Without the father, would we as readers understand the speakers personal history as thoroughly? Reconstructing integral parts of his identity which he was too young to be aware of in real-timea father figure and memory of the traumatic displacement that changed his life forever, Vuong falls back on mythology to compensate for what he lacks. 'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+"://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); Copyright 2012. But this poem,Aubade with Burning City, is what I have been thinking about, over and over, in the two years since I first read Night Sky with Exit Wounds. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/vietnamese-american-poet-contemplates-his-personal-ties-to-the-war, Relatives of Western jihadist fighters go public, hoping to stop others, Secretary John King on raising education standards and changing the college admissions caste system, Hoosier primary results could shape the rest of the White House race. Learn more about Friends of the NewsHour. Atlantic Noir Theme created by Style Hatch | Powered by Tumblr. Only in "Untitled," where 9/11 commingles with the loss of a friend of the speaker's, do we really get any sympathy on the speaker's part for America; however, even this sympathy is conditioned by the fact that it is for the experience of loss or sorrow, rather than anything intrinsically linked to America. Rather than using his standard iambic pentameter, Larkin uses two dactylic feet. At the same time that this destruction takes place, however, an intimate encounter is staged between a soldier and a woman in a hotel room that is interspersed with these images of destruction. Moving on, the speaker says that the fear of death is special. For instance, the last line of the poem: Postmen like doctors go from house to house. He compares it to a type of anaesthesia that takes over everything and no one wakes up from. Crucial context to the poem is provided at the beginning: South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins White Christmas as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon. In this case, the pattern is broken. Our catalogue store includes many more recordings which you can download to your device. Additionally, the moon itself is used as a recurring image throughout the collectionfor example, in the haiku that closes "Immigrant Haibun," where it also serves to link the divine and the civilian (by comparing the two migrants to God's eyes): "Summer in the mind. Poems from and about the American involvement in Vietnam. A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. Once there, we shall be lost in that blackness always. In a sense, all Vietnamese farmers were poets, because while they were working, they sang, and the songs helped the rhythm of the harvesting and the seeding of the fields. OCEAN VUONG, Author, "Night Sky With Exit Wounds": Sometimes, people say, well, how does it feel to be the first poet? Thank you. Appearances of "god" in Night Sky with Exit Wounds. He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips. WebAubade with Burning City South Vietnam , April 29, #975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlin's" White Christmas " as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon. I could write a lot more about all of the other haunting lines, but Im out of practice. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. The poem begins with the lovers drinking champagne, and ends with the burning nun running "silently toward her god," both of which use the same language of opening. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Our work is created by a team of talented poetry experts, to provide an in-depth look into poetry, like no other. This pairing of beats is known as an anapaestic foot. Please continue to help us support the fight against dementia with Alzheimer's Research Charity. A single candle. But she would have me write those letters anyway. / God opens his other eye: / two moons in the lake.". WebQuotes and Analysis Summary And Analysis "Threshold" "Telemachus" "Aubade with Burning City" "A Little Closer to the Edge" "My Father Writes from Prison" "Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds" "Homewrecker" "Of Thee I Sing" "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" "Eurydice" "Untitled (Blue, Green, and Brown): oil on canvas: Mark Rothko: 1952" If you have read Ocean Vuongs 2016 collection of poems, youd probably expect that Id write aboutOde to Masturbation, and believe me, its tempting. The first of these, enjambment, is a common literary device that is seen in the transition from one line to the next. He talks about growing from a boy into a man. Someday Ill Love Ocean Vuong, the penultimate poem, is inspired by Frank OHara and devoted entirely to meditation on his name. Request a transcript here. And I say, I'm not the first poet. In a 2013 interview with Edward J. Rathke, Vuong discussed the relationship between South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins White Christmas as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. At times, the speaker attempts to show the various ways in which common struggles or occurrences can take on the significance of myth: for example, he sees himself at times as an isolated or banished lover like Eurydice (Eurydice), and other times he maps the experience of immigration to the travels undergone in the Odyssey. Things are in motion. Snow shredded. And if I were to turn around and walk down this memorial and find my grandfather's name, I wouldn't be alive if his name was there. However, the two aspects of Vuongs identity are not mutually exclusive. Web Aubade by Philip Larkin is a beautifully dark poem about the inescapable nature of death and humankinds moments of despair. Its hard to comprehend as human beings what it will be like to Not be here or be anywhere. Interlacing the narratives of family and individuality together, Vuong has reached the threshold of maturity in his self-perception. Further, in "Of Thee I Sing," Jackie Kennedy is able to rationalize the death of her husband only in the context or service of her love for her country and her love of god. My son, tell them the body is a blade that sharpens by cutting.". Im dreaming to hear sleigh bells in the snow, In the square below: a nun, on fire, runs silently toward her god. Larkin makes use of several literary devices in Aubade. In the concluding section, however, father tops the chart of word frequency again. out of reasons. For example, that which exists between lines six and seven of the first stanza and between lines three and four of the third stanza. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. Their shadows, two wicks. It is important to note all universal Larkin makes the theme of death in Aubade. Used with permission of In Aubade with Burning City, the Fall of Saigon as told from his grandmothers memory is set against the passionate yet imaginary love-making scene of a couple. The most frequent words are father, open, city, inside, water, Lan (Vuongs mothers name), woman, son. Prevalence of words like father, Lan, woman, and son demonstrates the family theme that echoes throughout the first section of the collection. something neither of them can hear. Its presence in the poem, nonetheless, is evocative of both the stubbornness of love and passioneven against the backdrops of war and violenceas well as the fragility of love and its ability to be torn apart at any second by something like war. asthe traffic guard unstraps his holster. Though much is sacrificed in Night Sky with Exit Wounds in service of the American Dream or American ideal, we are provided with ample evidence throughout the collection that such an ideal is merely fictive. We respond to all comments too, giving you the answers you need. In the case of this poem, then, it is particularly interesting that the morning scene between the two lovers is vastly overshadowed both formally and imaginatively by the imagery of Saigon's destruction. Its early in the morning and finally, the light is starting to filter into the room. Wherever one looks in the collection, they see along with the speaker that the body is central in unifying all these disparate and opposite experiences simply because it is the physical material that underpins life, which itself is so curious and strange so as to connect things that otherwise would seem totally unrelated. He knows and has always known that hed eventually die, but the idea of being dead comes upon him to hold and horrify. In an interview with The Guardians Claire Armitstead, Vuong himself addressed this engagement nicely: "Western mythology is so charged with the father [] Personally, Im always asking whos my father. A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. Look it up. Here, while the body is explored as an object of sexual desire, it is also showcased as something that can be victimized, as well as something that can be respected and loved as a forerunner or ancestor. Their shadows, two wicks. You can read more of Ocean Vuong's work, along with all of our poetry coverage, on our Web site. In Vietnam, there's much dependency on the body. Likewise, the water motif evokes the reimagined seafaring migration of Vuongs parents in a wine bottle in Immigrant Haibun, often showing up in the vicinity of terms that fall under family umbrella like father, son, and couple.. It holds a certainty that many other things dont have Most things may never happen: this one will. Related to the bodys capacity to unify opposing forces is the speakers treatment of gay love in America. The irregular stanzas are scattered all over the page, like a bomb has exploded within the poem. the Walt Whitman of Vietnamese-American literature. A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. Heres a brief paragraph where I should offer my apologies for being away so long, but I dont know that anything matters so much as the poems themselves and the words about them, when they appear. Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls. In Immigrant Haibun, the body is a mystery forever unfathomable: Maybe the body is the only question an answer cant extinguish. The body then turns sinful, bearing the crime of living in My Father Writes from Prison. Larkins speaker also makes sure to mention how the fear of death moves from being a tiny blur in ones eye to a furnace-fear. Regarding the use of lyrics from "White Christmas," a clear irony is present in that Vietnam only has snow in its cool northern region, so the use of the song in the context of Saigon in April is doubly out of place. I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. In most poems in the collection (notably, Homewrecker and Prayer for the Newly Damned), the love between two boys or two men is presented as something that both participantsor at the very least the speakerknow will lead to upset or violence within their family. hiscigarette as footsteps fill the square like stones. In poems like Seventh Circle of Earth, Vuong and his speaker suggest that being gay is antithetical to the constructed cultural ideal of America, and that to be gay in America is necessarily to be erased at every moment in ones life. But, also, the daily news of life, and ultimately, when the war came, where the bombs were falling, information started to come into the rhyming couplets in the poems and the songs. Click on image to enlarge. In Newport I Watch My Father Lay His Cheek to a Beached Dolphins Wet Back, Untitled (Blue, Green and Brown): Oil on canvas : Mark Rothko : 1952, Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus, Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines. WebAubade, which is a time that lovers separate, is also represented by white. WebAnalysis: Aubade with Burning City. WebSuperSummary's Poem Study Guide for "Aubade With Burning City" by Ocean Vuong provides text-specific content for close reading, engagement, and the development of thought-provoking assignments. Not affiliated with Harvard College. It is a different way of being afraid than anything human beings experience in any other part of their life. In the poem Immigrant Haibun, for example we are able to understand how the experience of immigration was both daunting for the speakers parents but also brought them closer together. WebAubade with Burning City Ocean Vuong 18-page comprehensive study guide Chapter-by-chapter summaries and multiple sections of expert analysis The ultimate resource for When the dust rises, a black dog lies panting in the road, its hind legs crushed into the shine of a white Christmas.". In the future, we all enter into a state of being in which there is no touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, / Nothing to love or link with. Diction trend demonstrates a mixture of family and self-discovery themes: father, man, boy, mouth, body, tongue, hands, and Ocean are reiterated in multiple contexts. Accessed 1 March 2023. Similes, unlike metaphors, use like or as to compare one thing to another. Hes a whole day nearer to his own death than he was yesterday. Its hind legs / crushed into the shine / of a white Christmas. This really happened (the song as a code name for the evacuation). Snow shredded. Click on image to enlarge. Like "Threshold" before it, "A Little Closer to the Edge" is a poem that positions the speaker as an observer of the parentsthis time in a more explicitly sexual context. Aubade with Burning City Related Authors Ocean Vuong Audio Poem of the Day. A whiteA whiteIm dreaming of a curtain of snow. Mayall your Christmases be white as the traffic guard unstraps his holster. And if so, what does that say about the kinds of stories we are conditioned to read and accept? And as a child listening to that, it was so surreal to me. Webclub level at lumen field club level at lumen field. stranded by its language. The unreal father figure disappears almost completely from the mid-section of the book. Please check your inbox to confirm. Its a challenge easily met by Vuong, whose lyricism is nothing short of dazzling. She is saying, somethingneither of them can hear. One of the other things that troubles the speaker immensely throughout the collection is his relationship with his father, as well as his father's relationship with his mother. But, in this poem, Larkin discusses it so openly and clearly that it is incredibly easy for any reader to relate to his specific sentiments. This situates us firmly in the realm of the profane and removes any godly or Biblical connotations beyond the basic correspondence to the Garden of Eden. On the side of the profane, then we have the encounter between the lovers, the dog being smashed into the road, the soldier "spit[ting] out / his cigarette," and the fallen chief of police. The hotel rocks beneath them. This horse image is recurrent from poems like "Threshold" and will be repeated two poems later in "Always and Forever," a poem in which the horse transforms into a gun (using the heteronym "colt"). Finally, the apples in the final stanza are evocative of the forbidden fruit which led to Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and their thundering on the earth "with red hooves" evokes not only the intensity of the speaker's desired passions but also the animalistic nature of these passions. Charity No. At the same time, the body is both violence (a blade that sharpens by cutting) in Headfirst and safe haven (made soft/to keep us/from loneliness) in Into the Breach. What he thinks about most is the blackness that will greet him on the other side of death. Subscribe. A single candle. This idea, that pleasure and union with another person might serve as a type of bodily salvation, is also mirrored formally here since the poem is grouped into couplets. Don't move, she says, as she picks a wing bone of graphite from the yellow carcass, slides it back between my fingers.". Open, he says. In "Seventh Circle of Earth," for example, we see how two gay men have so internalized this frail American ideal that they are conditioned to accept their own annihilation or destruction. This association of the child figure with expulsion, displacement, or tragedy is echoed in the poem that immediately follows "A Little Closer," "Immigrant Haibun. It is through you visiting Poem Analysis that we are able to contribute to charity. Aubade with Burning City from Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong, Copyright 2016. The poem concludes with the speaker describing the first rays of light that make their way into his room. We look at this wall, the interesting and tense relationship I have with the war is that, without it, I wouldn't be here. The idea of his death is not unusual for him. She opens. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. He fills a teacup with For instance, line eight of the first stanza reads: Arid interrogation: yet the dread and line eight of the second stanza: And shall be lost in always. Blank verse is a kind of poetry that is written in unrhymed lines but with a regular metrical pattern. Click on image to enlarge. So, you can imagine the city falling apart during this beautiful, celebratory song. In fact, the lyrics are followed by what is happening in the situation. Moreover, the fact that the apples are linked fluidly with an ampersand to the "son" at the end of the poem might reflect an aspect of the immigrant experience, since partaking in the fruit (and thus, the son) necessarily must result in an expulsion from Eden. Open, he says. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. Structure and Style is a poetry blog by two writers who love poems. More Episodes from Audio Poem of the Day. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. 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