The Question and Answer section for Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a great It really is that good. "A Little Closer to the Edge" Summary and Analysis. May all your Christmases be white as the traffic guard unstraps his holster, his fingers running the hem of her white dress. I see someone has linked to a poem, I follow it, read it, its okay I click on, find another poem by another poet, and its better. Constant meditation on the body parts and perpetual questioning of the physical body is a celebrated practice within the religion. And, of course, the oral tradition doesn't offer a page. These embodiments of chaos and death include a dead chief of police "facedown in a pool of Coca-Cola," a crushed dog in the street, gunfire, an explosive shell bursting, and a "nun on fire.". 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." 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. When my grandmother would tell me about the collapse of Saigon, she would say, "Saigon, this sounds very strange, but I remember it fell during the snow song." 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. "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Words such as face, eyes, hand, and body all show up in the most common words in the Whitman poetry corpus. The Japanese have a word for it: yugen, when you have so little you have to imagine it.". She opens. There are no tricks that can dispel it. In addition to a close relationship with Buddhism, Night Sky with Exit Wounds also contains abundant biblical allusions and Christian references. Subscribe to Heres the Deal, our politics In Vietnam, there's much dependency on the body. Once there, we shall be lost in that blackness always. Web Aubade by Philip Larkin is a beautifully dark poem about the inescapable nature of death and humankinds moments of despair. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss thenovel. Request a transcript here. She is saying, somethingneither of them can hear. Murky and dreamlike narratives in the first section constitutes a sharp contrast against the second section, where Vuong moves away from the family theme to discuss coming of sexuality, love, and his American life. There will be no smells, thoughts, or anything to think or smell with. Vuong is a Buddhist by religion, but when it comes to literature, his faith does not draw a fixed boundary. Without the father, would we as readers understand the speakers personal history as thoroughly? That the sacred and the profane themselves become confused as ideas is especially reinforced by the same language of resignation being used to describe both the lovers and the nun: "Open, he says. On the side of the sacred or religious, there are each of the poem's connotations of otherworldly whiteness or purity, as well as the nun's immolation at the end of the poem. something neither of them can hear. Notably, this divinity is not an easy or preferable divinity, but an awesome and terrible one. His poetry, thus, has a unique stream of religious consciousnesshe alternates between the Buddhist and the Christian voice seamlessly in from one poem to another, or even from one line to another in the same poem. 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. The poem follows all of the death, destruction, and A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. May your days be merry andbright. When the dust rises, a black dog, On the nightstand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard. Thus my mother exists. Anne Azzi Davenport. In a poem under the same title, he refers to Telemachus, the son of Odysseus in Greek mythology who travels far and wide to trace news of his father, as a metaphor for his own efforts in constructing a father figure from imagination through writing. Their shadows: two wicks. But this poem,Aubade with Burning City, is what I have been thinking about, over and over, in the two years since I first read Night Sky with Exit Wounds. You can read more of Ocean Vuong's work, along with all of our poetry coverage, on our Web site. He knows that eventually, the darkness outside will give way to light but for now, he gets to look around him and see the world for what it really is Unresting death. And share it. My grandmother, she was a rice farmer. 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 Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls. The majority of the lines follow this pattern but there are a few, such as line seven of the first stanza, that differ. - Atlantic Noir Theme All Rights Reserved. The sure extinction that all living creatures are travelling to. 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. In the final ten lines of Aubade,the speaker takes the reader back to the beginning of the poem. In a 2013 interview with Edward J. Rathke, Vuong discussed the relationship between South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins 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. A bicycle hurled through a store window. "Aubade by Philip Larkin". Moreover, the repetition of certain lyricstogether with certain images (i.e., "milkflower petals" and the dog) emphasizes not only the piling up of wreckage in the city but also echoes on a content level the examination and re-examination of the fall of Saigon from different angles and perspectives. An aubade is typically a poem that celebrates the arrival of dawn. Outside, a soldier spits out his cigarette as footsteps fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. A military truck speeds through the intersection, the sound of children, through a store window. Im dreamingofa curtain of snow, Snow scraping against the window. Click on image to enlarge. Because no one else. 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). He fills a teacup with Born in Saigon, poet and editor Ocean Vuong was raised in Hartford, Connecticut, and earned a BA at Brooklyn College (CUNY). Other narratives that ripple across the first section include the Vietnam War, the boat migration, and the family displacement that ensues it. Much like the poem's portrayal of the divine, however, these profane and worldly encounters are coded in a relatively negative light with the only exception coming in the form of the "sprig of magnolia expand[ing]." 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. All Rights Reserved. Considering the complexity and ambiguity of this past is one thing that gets the speaker thinking about his own ability to act violently and tenderly in the present. It is a small unfocused blur that one cant quite see but also cant ignore. cigarette as footsteps fill the square like stones, a store window. On the bed stand, a sprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard for the first time. . 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. But she would have me write those letters anyway. In the second stanza of Aubade,the speaker focuses on what it is about death that hes so worried about. Please check your inbox to confirm. She her father is an American veteran. "My Father Writes from Prison" Summary and Analysis, "Aubade with Burning City" Summary and Analysis. In Newport I Watch My Father Lay His Cheek to a Beached Dolphins Wet Back, Untitled (Blue, Green and Brown): Oil on canvas : Mark Rothko : 1952, Type out all lyrics, even repeating song parts like the chorus, Lyrics should be broken down into individual lines. But enough rambling go and read it! A whiteA whiteIm dreaming of a curtain of snow. More Episodes from Audio Poem of the Day. And this is how information was passed. Apart from the Buddhist identity that Vuong inherits from his Vietnamese background, his autographical self was enriched by his Christian experience in America. Vuong grew up having had no patriarchal figure in his vicinity. Aubade by Philip Larkin is a poem about the unifying qualities of death and the human experience. "A, B, C, A, B, C, A the pencil snaps, the B bursting its belly as dark dust blows through a blue-lined sky. Snow on the tanks rolling over the city walls. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window). Im haunted by the idea of snow and that white Christmas we say we dream of in the U.S., but in South Vietnam, its different:Snow shredded / with gunfire. An aubade is a poem that is written to accompany the break of day, most commonly in the context of two lovers parting. In his take on the Garden of Eden in A Little Closer to the Edge, Vuong adds a twist to the tale of Adam and Eve. Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape. 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 mind blanks at the glare. 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"). 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. Crucial context to the poem is provided at the beginning: South Vietnam, April 29, 1975: Armed Forces Radio played Irving Berlins 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. 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. On the side of the profane, then we have the encounter between the lovers, the dog being smashed into the road, the soldier "spit[ting] out / his cigarette," and the fallen chief of police. Open, he says. 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. The bed a field of ice. Apart from several overlaps in the diction of human body parts with the overall analysis, analysis of the first section returns remarkable differences. A helicopter lifting the living just out of reach. 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. Its the total emptiness for ever that haunts him, not the things left undone. The second section of Night Sky with Exit Wounds has 11 poems written in 2,538 words. The most frequent words are father, open, city, inside, water, Lan (Vuongs mothers name), woman, son. Prevalence of words like father, Lan, woman, and son demonstrates the family theme that echoes throughout the first section of the collection. At the same time that this destruction takes place, however, an intimate encounter is staged between a soldier and a woman in a hotel room that is interspersed with these images of destruction. Moreover, here, there is no kind of divine temptation"in this version, the snake is headless." 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. At the poem's conclusion, the speaker addresses his mother and asks her to teach him how to love a man properly, before appealing to a land "where apples thunder / the earth with red hooves. The room takes shape around him and everyone goes about their day, doing what they need to do. 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. Larkins speaker is not waking up with a lover with whom hes just spent the night, he is instead waking up to thoughts of death. WebThe poem deals with the speaker's struggle to confront traumatic wartime memories while looking at his reflection in the memorial's shiny surface and staring at the names of fallen soldiers. 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. Hell be entirely lost. 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. Words used in close vicinity with "father" in the first section. 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. 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