Book Review: Night Sky with Exit Wounds

A few days ago, I picked up a copy of Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. This time, rather than ordering a physical copy, I got an e-book copy because I was disinclined to wait for shipping and I thought I might get around to it faster. Given I started it the minute I put it on my e-reader and finished it within two days, I'd say that decision paid off. It was my third read of 2022 and arguably my favorite, thus far. (This review revision was completed April 15, 2023.)

Rating:   4/5

Buy Night Sky With Exit Wounds Here.

Cover Blurb: 

"In his haunting and fearless debut, Ocean Vuong walks a tightrope of historic and personal violences, creating an interrogation of the American body as a borderless space of both failure and triumph. At once vulnerable and redemptive, dreamlike and visceral, compassionate and unforgiving, these poems seek a myriad existence without forgetting the prerequisite of self-preservation in a world bent on extinguishing its othered voices. Vuong's poems show, through breath, cadence, and unrepentant enthrallment, that a gentle palm on a chest can calm the most necessary of hungers."

Review: 

Here's a question:

How does one review poetry? What can be said that hasn't been said and that doesn't sound canned? Why is poetry so difficult to talk about, anyway?

This was a short book, but I think it would lose something if finished in just an hour or two. It was heavy. Vuong's writing is beautiful. His imagery was strong and the story he wove through this collection was intense, impactful, and sharp. There were so many lines that just sang. A number of these poems sought to uncover truths and understandings most often found alone in the dark. In short, they felt familiar. 

My favorites, because I always have favorites in every poetry collection, were "Immigrant Haibun", "Notebook Fragments", and "Torso of Air".

Night Sky with Exit Wounds has won the T. S. Eliot prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize, and I think the reasons it is so beloved as a collection are rather apparent.