Play It Again: Ocean Vuong

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Higher Ground

Tv & Film, Film Interviews, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today we’re revisiting a favorite conversation with poet and author Ocean Vuong, following the release of his new book, Time Is a Mother.

He first joined us in June of 2021. We discuss reckoning with one’s work from a distance (6:18), why he wrote his autobiographical novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous (7:40), the cage of American masculinity (12:10), how he’s stayed the course, creatively, amidst oppressive systems (19:56), and what it means to be a first-generation writer (23:53).

On the back-half, we wrestle with the grief of his mother’s passing and the tragic shootings in Atlanta (29:40), along with the collective uncertainty of the year (44:48). Before we leave, a tribute to his late mother (51:42).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Pushkin.
0:09.6	What do poll dancing, AI Chappots and diet culture all have in common.
0:13.7	These subjects have a home on Embodied, the award-winning podcast I host from North Carolina
0:17.8	Public Radio W-U-N-C.
0:20.3	My name is Anita Rao, and you can consider me your personal guide to taking on the taboo.
0:25.0	Join me to explore important questions about our bodies and our society, where nothing is off limits.
0:31.0	So go ahead, listen to Embodied every Friday wherever you get your podcasts. This is talk easy. I'm San Francisco, so welcome to the show. Today we're revisiting our conversation with writer Ocean Wong.
1:13.4	Ocean has just published a new collection of poetry called Time is a Mother.
1:19.3	In the spirit of his novel on Earth were briefly gorgeous. This new piece contends with grief, family, and the cost of being the product of an American war.
1:30.0	But at the core of this collection is the passing of Ocean's mother, Rose.
1:35.2	She died in 2019 after battling breast cancer.
1:39.2	She was 51.
1:40.6	When I sat with Ocean last year, I felt her kind of presiding over this conversation as if she was in the room with us just over his shoulder listening.
1:50.0	If you've read his work, then you know that she lives on through Ocean's words on the page.
1:56.8	But I also think she lives on through him in this conversation.
2:01.2	Now before we get into it, I want to say that this is one of the most popular
2:05.2	episodes we've ever released on Talk Easy. I think you'll understand why in a
2:10.1	second. So if you have listened before and want something else today, our talk
2:16.1	with the musician Sid of the internet, formerly of Odd Future, is really a joy.
2:21.6	I haven't laughed that much on a podcast in a very, very long time.
2:27.0	So if you haven't heard it yet, you can find that wherever you're listening to this right now.
2:32.0	Her new solo record record Broken Hearts Club
	...

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