Ocean Vuong

Well, one of my favorite poets is Reginald Shepard. He passed away in 2008. He's a brilliant poet. He wrote this beautiful book on black poetics called Orpheus in the Bronx. If there's one book you read this year, please read Reginald Shepard's Orpheus in the Bronx.

He grew up with welfare, his mother passed away, grew up in the Bronx, went to Brown, went to Iowa, and he made the word taken wherever he wanted to go. A huge hero of mine. Reginald said something really brilliant in Orpheus in the Bronx, where he says, identity is not finite. It is organic and growing.

He grew up with welfare, his mother passed away, grew up in the Bronx, went to Brown, went to Iowa, and he made the word taken wherever he wanted to go. A huge hero of mine. Reginald said something really brilliant in Orpheus in the Bronx, where he says, identity is not finite. It is organic and growing.

He grew up with welfare, his mother passed away, grew up in the Bronx, went to Brown, went to Iowa, and he made the word taken wherever he wanted to go. A huge hero of mine. Reginald said something really brilliant in Orpheus in the Bronx, where he says, identity is not finite. It is organic and growing.

He's talking specifically about blackness, but you can match it and map it onto anything else. He said, why do we believe blackness is over, that I have to then translate this rock into the culture that makes it understandable for whiteness?

He's talking specifically about blackness, but you can match it and map it onto anything else. He said, why do we believe blackness is over, that I have to then translate this rock into the culture that makes it understandable for whiteness?

He's talking specifically about blackness, but you can match it and map it onto anything else. He said, why do we believe blackness is over, that I have to then translate this rock into the culture that makes it understandable for whiteness?

What if instead it's this on-growing nebulous spore that's constantly moving and any given day I don't know what blackness is but I'm moving towards it as it's moving through me. And it just blew my mind. I said, that's it. I don't know what is at the center of me. There are the labels that the culture gives, queer, Asian American, working class, okay.

What if instead it's this on-growing nebulous spore that's constantly moving and any given day I don't know what blackness is but I'm moving towards it as it's moving through me. And it just blew my mind. I said, that's it. I don't know what is at the center of me. There are the labels that the culture gives, queer, Asian American, working class, okay.

What if instead it's this on-growing nebulous spore that's constantly moving and any given day I don't know what blackness is but I'm moving towards it as it's moving through me. And it just blew my mind. I said, that's it. I don't know what is at the center of me. There are the labels that the culture gives, queer, Asian American, working class, okay.

But those labels also erase us as much as they name us. The first thing colonizers do is they categorize things. Categorization becomes a method, the first, the predecessor for subjugation. And so I like this idea that the true me is unknown even to me, and the work becomes like a photograph. There's a fountain in us, and it's always moving, and the work just captures it in time.

But those labels also erase us as much as they name us. The first thing colonizers do is they categorize things. Categorization becomes a method, the first, the predecessor for subjugation. And so I like this idea that the true me is unknown even to me, and the work becomes like a photograph. There's a fountain in us, and it's always moving, and the work just captures it in time.

But those labels also erase us as much as they name us. The first thing colonizers do is they categorize things. Categorization becomes a method, the first, the predecessor for subjugation. And so I like this idea that the true me is unknown even to me, and the work becomes like a photograph. There's a fountain in us, and it's always moving, and the work just captures it in time.

Maybe it's something about being Asian American, being queer. Maybe there's something else. but there is a kind of desire to not be captured. Why that is, I don't know, but I think that I don't really want to be known. I don't want to be transparent. So the books become bait, in a way, so that I can move elsewhere.

Maybe it's something about being Asian American, being queer. Maybe there's something else. but there is a kind of desire to not be captured. Why that is, I don't know, but I think that I don't really want to be known. I don't want to be transparent. So the books become bait, in a way, so that I can move elsewhere.

Maybe it's something about being Asian American, being queer. Maybe there's something else. but there is a kind of desire to not be captured. Why that is, I don't know, but I think that I don't really want to be known. I don't want to be transparent. So the books become bait, in a way, so that I can move elsewhere.

Yeah, I see it as a reincarnation, as a Buddhist. My books are not temporal sequences, but they are reincarnations of myself. And that's kind of a faux pas in Western values. You're supposed to reinvent yourself entirely. But where is that true? You and I are here because of the ancestors, the DNA, the memory, the features of everyone who made us. And I don't see anything different in a book

Yeah, I see it as a reincarnation, as a Buddhist. My books are not temporal sequences, but they are reincarnations of myself. And that's kind of a faux pas in Western values. You're supposed to reinvent yourself entirely. But where is that true? You and I are here because of the ancestors, the DNA, the memory, the features of everyone who made us. And I don't see anything different in a book

Yeah, I see it as a reincarnation, as a Buddhist. My books are not temporal sequences, but they are reincarnations of myself. And that's kind of a faux pas in Western values. You're supposed to reinvent yourself entirely. But where is that true? You and I are here because of the ancestors, the DNA, the memory, the features of everyone who made us. And I don't see anything different in a book

But I don't approach any identity, least of all Asian American identity, as something I know. I approach it as something I'm discovering.