On Being With Christa Tippett is supported in part by the Fetzer Institute, helping build the

Spiritual Foundation for a loving world. Fetzer's sharing spiritual heritage report asks,

how will we reimagine our spiritual infrastructure for today's time? Learn more at Fetzer.org.

So here 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 ways we've only begun to process and to fathom. And for today it felt

right to listen again to one of our most beloved shows of the post 2020 world. In fact, I interviewed

the wise and wonderful Ocean Vong right on the cusp of that turning in March 2020 in a joyful,

crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. Yet what's most stunning from the vantage point of now

is how pressiantly and exquisitely Ocean spoke and continues to speak to the world we have come

to inhabit. Its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for destruction and for finding new life.

And as I speak, Ocean has released a new book of poetry evocatively titled, Time Is A Mother.

I'm Krista Tippett and this is on being.

It's such an honor to be invited to be part of the honor fest and to do a show here. I'm really

excited. I love this room and I love the energy in it that you all are bringing. And yeah, what an

honor and a delight to be up here with Ocean Vong. Who I want to describe as a writer and wise person

who at a young age has made a singular contribution to American letters as a writer of poetry and essays

in this novel that you may have heard of. The word gorgeous that occurs in the title on Earth

we're briefly gorgeous is a word that's also often used to describe your writing and your voice,

your literary voice. And also, you know, Ocean, I want to say I am aware that when people write about

you and introduce you and describe you, they often speak about how your work is shaped by themes

of violence and survival. In the context of the immigrant experience, in the context of life

and displacement in the aftermath of war, in the context of growing up age in American and queer

...