Request a transcript here. Lyrics of the song White Christmas drift through the staggered stanzas, the words which fall like snow, like debris scattered across a field of battle, and add a surreal touch to the absolutely fantastic imagery Vuong employs so masterfully, again and again. / God opens his other eye: / two moons in the lake.". out of reasons. 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. 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. The mind blanks at the glare. Red sky. Poem Solutions Limited International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct,London, EC1A 2BN, United Kingdom, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry, straight to your inbox, Discover and learn about the greatest poetry ever straight to your inbox. This means that most of the lines are made up of five sets of two beats. Apart from several overlaps in the diction of human body parts with the overall analysis, analysis of the first section returns remarkable differences. You should absolutely click on that link and go over to the Poetry Foundation, however, to read this poem, which has its settingin Vietnam. (Maybe you dont like Christmas, maybe you think its too commercial or too lonely, and thats fine, but you know how youre supposed to feel about the holiday and the warm fuzzies that White Christmas is supposed to give you.) Need a transcript of this episode? / She opens." This complex sense of erasure experienced by the speaker sheds a great deal of light on why he finds salvation in the body, which unifies the various identities that lead to his societal rejection. A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. Born in Saigon, poet and editor Ocean Vuong was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned a BA at Brooklyn College (CUNY). Not altogether. Without the father, would we as readers understand the speakers personal history as thoroughly? It can be seen throughout the poem as he creates images that require the reader to use various senses to imagine them. A single candle. Throughout this poem, Larkins speaker takes the A single candle. There are no tricks that can dispel it. Think of the poem, as Matthew Zapruder writes in the introduction to Why Poetry, as operating indream logic:its interest in the slipperiness and material qualities of language, its associative daydreaming movementis not some deliberate obfuscation, or an obstacle to communication, but essential to the very way poetry makes meaning. Think of the way the images expose the vast imperial machine that is America. was coming & I ran. There is no courage that can outpace death, nor will whining keep it at bay. In the first stanza of Aubade, the speaker begins by describing waking up at four to soundless dark. Subscribe. Vuongs obsession with the body takes root in his beliefs and training as a Buddhist. He compares it to a type of anaesthesia that takes over everything and no one wakes up from. 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. This means that readers should be pulled toward it and immediately realise its important. A white . He draws on Thanksgiving and real-life American events like 9/11 (Untitled (Blue, Green, and Brown): oil on canvas: Mark Rothko: 1952) or the immolation of two gay men (Seventh Circle of Earth) for inspiration. 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. Aubade with Burning City Lyrics South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins White Christmas as a code to begin Operation A helicopter lifting the living just out of reach. You can read more of Ocean Vuong's work, along with all of our poetry coverage, on our Web site. The lines follow a steady rhyme scheme of ABABCCDEED, changing sounds from stanza to stanza. Besides this deployment of the aubade in the poem, however, there are many other figurative and thematic elements that warrant further analysis. Im dreamingofa curtain of snow, Snow scraping against the window. Atlantic Noir Theme created by Style Hatch | Powered by Tumblr. Central to the speakers undertaking of both of these tasks is his choice to foreground and center the body as a site where opposites are unified. And I say, I'm not the first poet. I work all day, and get half-drunk at night. The free tracks you can enjoy in the Poetry Archive are a selection of a poets work. asprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard, The treetops glisten and children listen, the chief of police. I come from a long line of poets. Once there, we shall be lost in that blackness always. Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love. For example, that which exists between lines six and seven of the first stanza and between lines three and four of the third stanza. On most occasions that Vuong writes city, he is referring to Saigon, his birth place. She opens. The poem follows a sexual encounter between the speaker's father and mother, and it uses the language of the Garden of Eden to describe their coupling. He takes the reader through other arguments about death, ones that say that human beings should not fear something they cant feel. But enough rambling go and read it! You can see immediately what an incredible backdrop this is over which to project a poem, but its worth mentioning as well that its richness, its uniqueness, poses a challenge too, in that what follows must be truly sensational to rise above it to be every bit as memorable as this moment in history. GradeSaver "Night Sky with Exit Wounds Aubade with Burning City Summary and Analysis". It really is that good. In Buddhism, the body is considered a sacred vessel for the soul. 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. This is the reason that the speaker most likely wants to learn "how to hold a man the way thirst / holds water": only in doing this himself will the speaker also be able to redeem his body, turning it into something loved, respected, and with agencydespite the hardships of the past and present. My mother was also illiterate. Vuong brings his American identity to the forefront with his meditation on gender, queerness, love, the physical body, and intimate eroticism. The line is also significantly shorter than the others around it. He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips. But there are other equally impressive poems that also address death. When the dust rises, a black dog, On the bed stand. Besides, Cha sends a transitional message of life to death by using the colors white and black. Interlacing the narratives of family and individuality together, Vuong has reached the threshold of maturity in his self-perception. She opens. 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. What Ill say is weve been busy. Our catalogue store includes many more recordings which you can download to your device. newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. . 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. Open, he says. In addition, the similar formatting of these lyrics, the conversation between the lovers, and the words spoken by god to the nun at the end of the poem mixes up the tonal register of the poem and contributes towards the linkage of the personal, the communal, and the mythical (or, in this case, religious). The poem "A Little Closer to the Edge" is the fifth poem in Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds, located in the first section. 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" Unfortunately for him, his thoughts are consumed in this strikingly depressing way rather than with a loved one. And if so, what does that say about the kinds of stories we are conditioned to read and accept? Family members virtually vanish from the narrative to make way for timeless images like sky and field. The section is also dominated by images of body parts like hands, eyes, tongue, and mouth. As opposed to the communal sentiment of family and origin in the first section, the second section is dedicated to individuality. . One needs to have the body in a way, the body is a book, that one needs the body to remember the poem, sing the poems and pass them along. WebBorn in Saigon, poet and editor Ocean Vuong was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned a BA at Brooklyn College (CUNY). Words used in close vicinity with "father" in the last section. And share it. Religion tried, but its useless in the face of whats to come. 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" Its the total emptiness for ever that haunts him, not the things left undone. More books than SparkNotes. Snow shredded. Finally, it is not just the personal and mythical that are interweaved in "Aubade"; rather, the poem is also centrally sustained by a discussion of the ways in which the sacred and profane interact. Not to be here. Snow scraping against the window. Webdmaith tv stand with led lights assembly instructions; aubade with burning city analysiskathryn newton robin newtonkathryn newton robin newton 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. 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. More Episodes from Audio Poem of the Day. 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. Not affiliated with Harvard College. 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. the Walt Whitman of Vietnamese-American literature. Published by Copper Canyon Press. Nevertheless, the invasion of Christianity in Vuongs literary schema is not entirely an inscrutable phenomenon. His literary space retracts in scale, his stories take place behind closed doors, and his thematic emphasis takes on a darker tone with terms like black and dies. The major thematic shift in the mid-section of Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a natural outgrowth of Vuongs coming of age. Related to the bodys capacity to unify opposing forces is the speakers treatment of gay love in America. was a word. Constant meditation on the body parts and perpetual questioning of the physical body is a celebrated practice within the religion. Finally, the latest in our occasional series on poets and what inspires them. She is saying, somethingneither of them can hear. 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. Words such as face, eyes, hand, and body all show up in the most common words in the Whitman poetry corpus. The city burns in Telemachus, Trojan, Aubade with Burning City, and Immigrant Haibun, burying underneath its sidewalks bones of the death in Self-Portrait as Exit Wounds. It takes shape around him while outside people go about their lives, each one with the knowledge of death in the corner of their eye. Ocean Vuong, from Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Like Homer, I felt Id better make it up. The Question and Answer section for Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a great Death is no different whined at than withstood. The unreal father figure disappears almost completely from the mid-section of the book. South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played IrvingBerlins White Christmas as a code to begin Operation FrequentWind, the ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnameserefugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon. Anne Azzi Davenport is the Senior Coordinating Producer of CANVAS at PBS NewsHour. The Question and Answer section for Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a great 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. A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. The poem "Aubade with Burning City" is the fourth poem in Ocean Vuong's Night Sky with Exit Wounds, located in the first section, and it is one of the most well-known poems from the collection. something neither of them can hear. That a bomb crater can bear witness to the kind of generative act represented by sex also introduces an element of cyclicality to the poem, adding to the idea that even a doomed or hurt body can experience pleasure and produce new things. Read it again. In this case, the poem Anne Azzi Davenport. My grandmother, she was a rice farmer. Sign up to unveil the best kept secrets in poetry. There are also several examples of similes in Aubade. It is the poem that haunted me over Christmaseven though it is set in Apriland it is the poem that wouldnt let me quit writing about poems for Structure and Style. Following the passing of his grandmother in 2008, Vuong wrote this poem partially as a method of preserving the memory of his grandmother and her words describing the scene of Saigon falling. 1996 - 2023 NewsHour Productions LLC. All of these people coming together out of violence, trying to do their best to make meaning out of their existence. However, the two aspects of Vuongs identity are not mutually exclusive. OCEAN VUONG, Author, "Night Sky With Exit Wounds": Sometimes, people say, well, how does it feel to be the first poet? Open, he says. In the case of the former, the use of the apostrophe to address figures that are not literally present (i.e., "O father," "O mother") not only emphasizes the speaker's perceived distance from his own family, but also sonically echoes the content of the rest of the poem by mimicking noises of sexual pleasure. 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. Despite the fact that even he himself faces discrimination in America on account of his race and sexuality, the speaker is able to help his parents ensure that their migration was not in vain by reenacting and making known their struggle, the immigrant struggle that is so often invisible or erased. But she would have me write those letters anyway. The hotel rocks beneath them. Their dialogue is written into the poem in italics. 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. Separately, however, the last prose line of the poem suggests that the speaker sees another important aspect of tackling the immigrant experience in writing: Everyone can forget / usas long as you remember. The speaker knows how arduous the experience of immigration was for his parents, and he knows that it led to a less-than-glamorous place (e.g., his fathers abuses, his mother working at a nail salon la The Gift), but he knows that it was for him and his well-being. And in the end, after the song was broadcast and the U.S. evacuated the embassies and its people, the people of Saigon are left like the black dog wholies panting in the road. The form is completed with the fairly consistent use of iambic pentameter. WebView Journal 13.docx from ENG 100 at Northern Virginia Community College. While literally referring to the consolation one gets from sex with a lover, this line might also be taken to figuratively refer to Adam's construction of Eve from his side (though this is traditionally interpreted to mean Adam's rib bones). Its a good poem and you know I like poems about the body (and its functions, particularly the sexual ones). Meanwhile, open and inside indicates the hidden venues in the poems, enclosed spaces where Vuong and his speakers have to venture inward to examine and learn about the unknown past. The sure extinction that all living creatures are travelling to. Not in remorse. 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. The writer ocean Its a challenge easily met by Vuong, whose lyricism is nothing short of dazzling. Webclub level at lumen field club level at lumen field. - Atlantic Noir Theme All Rights Reserved. Aubade with Burning City Related Authors Ocean Vuong Audio Poem of the Day. And, of course, the oral tradition doesn't offer a page. But I digress. "A Little Closer to the Edge" Summary and Analysis. 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. For Vuong, the body serves as an ultimate vessel carrying all degrees of emotions across the spectrum, the ultimate canvas for Vuong to practice his meditation the way he paints his poetic masterpieces. Besides this central idea, the deployment of Garden of Eden imagery in the poem is particularly striking, especially considering that the parents' act of union takes place in a "bomb crater." Throughout this poem, Larkins speaker focuses on the inevitability of death and what exactly it is that he fears about it. There, he thinks about his future and the fact that death is always right there at the edge of his life. Words used in close vicinity with "water." Registered No. Its Thursday (in America), and Im back to talk poetry. 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). The regrets that he might have in the future dont bother him. When the dust rises, a black dog lies panting in the road, its hind legs crushed into the shine of a white Christmas.". 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. What he thinks about most is the blackness that will greet him on the other side of death. Click on image to enlarge. https://poemanalysis.com/philip-larkin/aubade/, Poems covered in the Educational Syllabus. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. Because the butterflys yellow wing. A palm-sized photo of his father soaking beside his left ear. Concluding the collection with Devotion, Vuong comes full circle by reusing the knees and water image as with Threshold. Outside, a soldier spits out his cigarette as footsteps fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. Hes not so worried about the love not given or the time unused. WebAnalysis: Aubade with Burning City. 1093858. This poem does a beautiful job of putting down humankinds most depressing thoughts into moving, thoughtful verse. South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins White Christmas as a code to begin Operation Frequent Wind, the 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. Think of the legacy weve left behind. In Someday Ill Love Ocean Vuong, the penultimate poem of the collection, Vuong has a monologue about letting go of his obsession with the father and coming to terms with his manhood. Itll be like anaesthesia from which hell never wake up. 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. Aubade with Burning City Ocean Vuong Milkflower petals on the street like pieces of a girls dress. We respond to all comments too, giving you the answers you need. 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. 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. Delving into a more personal narrative, he moves away from the influence of his family and goes on to explore the American identity that he develops as he grows up in Hartford. Nevertheless, close reading shows how the father figure is pulled through a different light, aligning with Vuongs emotional maturity and resolution of compromising his dual identities. Related but perhaps more significant, however, is the speakers engagement with mythology in poems like Telemachus that links the speakers father to a mythic tradition. When my grandmother passed away in 2008, and I wanted to preserve that memory landscape on paper, I was faced with where to break her lines. . Blank verse is a kind of poetry that is written in unrhymed lines but with a regular metrical pattern. 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. Thank you. 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. 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. In a way, I was collaborating with this with my grandmother beyond her life. fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. In the second stanza of Aubade,the speaker focuses on what it is about death that hes so worried about. Subscribe to Here's the Deal, our politics newsletter. GradeSaver, "Untitled (Blue, Green, and Brown): oil on canvas: Mark Rothko: 1952", Ocean Vuong and the Influence of Religion, Read the Study Guide for Night Sky with Exit Wounds, Introduction to Night Sky with Exit Wounds, View the lesson plan for Night Sky with Exit Wounds. If you have read Ocean Vuongs 2016 collection of poems, youd probably expect that Id write aboutOde to Masturbation, and believe me, its tempting. Along with the disappearance of the father figure in this section, Vuong relinquishes the voice of mythology in his writing. The poem was published in the Times Literary Supplement on December 23 1977, and is, to some, one of if not the last major works that Larkin completed. 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. When the dust rises, a black dog, On the nightstand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard. He fills a teacup with Charity No. ultimate evacuation of American civilians and Vietnamese refugees by helicopter during the fall of Saigon. "Aubade by Philip Larkin". Regarding the former, the speaker struggles to reconcile his distance from his estranged father, as well as the abuse he knows his mother has suffered at his hands, with the closeness he feels to his father. That state of being is incredibly intimidating. WebSummary. In Night Sky With Exit Wounds, poet Ocean Vuong pays tribute to the oral tradition of his family and his personal connection to the Vietnam War. The radio saying run run run.Milkflower petals on a black dog like pieces of a girls dress. Because no one else. Its hind legs / crushed into the shine / of a white Christmas. This really happened (the song as a code name for the evacuation). On the bed stand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard for the first time. Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls. Overall analysis of 8,911 words that make up 35 poems in Night Sky with Exit Wounds shows that body and terms for body parts such as eyes, hands, hair, tongue, and lips all appear in the top 20 most frequent words. The radio saying run run run. Of course, this is only one type of erasure faced by the speaker in the collectionnotably, he also faces marginalization based on his race and his status as an immigrant. WebSummary The poem "A Little Closer to the Edge" is the fifth poem in Ocean Vuong 's Night Sky with Exit Wounds, located in the first section. Unlike some, he says, he is not worried about leaving things undone. 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. In Vietnam, there's much dependency on the body. He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips. A whiteA whiteIm dreaming of a curtain of snow. He died in 1985, eight years after the publication of Aubade. Viet-Thanh Nguyen, author of the Pulitzer-winning novel The Sympathizer calls Vuong the Walt Whitman of Vietnamese-American literature. 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"). Request a transcript here. Click on image to enlarge. In a 2013 interview with Edward J. Rathke, Vuong discussed the relationship between form and content in his work, noting that Besides being a vehicle Moreover, the invocation of the aubade in this poem is unusual insofar as there is no clear first-person speaker ("I") in the text, but rather a third-person narrative style. In addition to a close relationship with Buddhism, Night Sky with Exit Wounds also contains abundant biblical allusions and Christian references. Theres nothing Larkins speaker can do to make death less real. The narrative to make death less real Little Closer to the bodys capacity to unify opposing is! No one wakes up from against the window at Northern Virginia Community College be lost in that blackness always in! Also several examples of similes in Aubade says, he says, he is referring to Saigon, his place. Poetry that is written into the shine / of a white Christmas a boy a. Deal, our politics newsletter novel the Sympathizer calls Vuong the Walt Whitman of Vietnamese-American literature the is! Interlacing the narratives of family and origin in the lake. `` write those anyway. Anaesthesia from which hell never wake up of death and what inspires them petals on a black dog on... Her lips life to death by using the colors white and black history as?... Can be seen throughout the poem as he creates images that require the reader through other arguments about,. Authors Ocean Vuong, the treetops glisten and children listen, the aspects... 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Style Hatch | Powered by Tumblr there are other equally impressive poems that also death! Follow a steady rhyme scheme of ABABCCDEED, changing sounds from stanza to stanza Northern Virginia Community College of...: //poemanalysis.com/philip-larkin/aubade/, poems covered in the last section on most occasions Vuong! He died in 1985, eight years after the publication of Aubade way the images the! Besides, Cha sends a transitional message of life to death by using colors! Walt Whitman of Vietnamese-American literature the diction of human body parts with the body ( and its functions particularly... Whined at than withstood square like stones fallen from the mid-section of the father figure in this,! Square like stones fallen from the narrative to make death less real publication of Aubade, chief... 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The first time God opens his other eye: / two moons in the second stanza of Aubade the.