On the other hand, the black color depicts the destruction of war, "face down in a pool of Coca-Cola" represents a soldier's death. And if so, what does that say about the kinds of stories we are conditioned to read and accept? The sure extinction that all living creatures are travelling to. Like Homer, I felt Id better make it up. Please check your inbox to confirm. / Yikes. The fact that, even amidst a backdrop of war and destruction, there is tenderness and love that is so personal and significant for the speaker is a central theme that runs throughout the collection insofar as it ties in with the collections larger project of exploring duality. 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. 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." 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. In his poems, he often explores transformation, desire, and violent loss. 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. 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. This heavy subject matter makes the first stanza of the poem overwhelming and surprising. When the dust rises, a black dog lies panting in the road. This is not an unusual start to an aubade but what comes next is. A white . A military truck speeds through the intersection, children shrieking inside. / She opens." The hotel rocks, February 2014: "a joke that ends withhuh? When the dust rises, a black dog lies panting in the road, its hind legs crushed into the shine of a white Christmas.". Not affiliated with Harvard College. 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. Their shadows: two wicks. For example, the eighth line of the fifth stanza reads, The sky is white as clay, with no sun. Used with permission of Death is one of the most common themes in the world of poetry, as well as in the broader literary world. 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. Larkin makes use of several literary devices in Aubade. & I am your son.". And share it. The sacred and the profane meet in the body as the devotional act of prayer is commingled with devotional acts of sex and physical passion (Devotion). 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. 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. Besides, Cha sends a transitional message of life to death by using the colors white and black. Words used in close vicinity with "father" in the last section. The radio saying run run run. 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. This poem, Aubade With Burning City, was based on the memories of Mr. Vuongs grandmother, who recalled that Saigon fell during the snow song. https://poemanalysis.com/philip-larkin/aubade/, Poems covered in the Educational Syllabus. The song moving through the city like a widow. 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. After his family arrived in Hartford, Connecticut, Vuongs parents divorced , leaving him to be raised in a household of womenhis grandmother, mother, and aunt. 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. In this case, the poem In this archival edition of the podcast, the editors discuss two poems by Ocean Vuong. asprig of magnolia expands like a secret heard, The treetops glisten and children listen, the chief of police. Similes, unlike metaphors, use like or as to compare one thing to another. Copyright 1999 - 2023 GradeSaver LLC. As the speaker looks backward to his past in an effort to understand how he can originate from such a violent place, he also attempts to reconcile his understandings of the past with who he is in the present. When we immigrated to America, all she had were these songs and poems. A single candle. flickering in black mud. 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. Vuong then inserts small pieces of the songs lyrics in italics which gives off a sense of peaceful scenario. Regarding the use of lyrics from "White Christmas," a clear irony is present in that Vietnam only has snow in its cool northern region, so the use of the song in the context of Saigon in April is doubly out of place. This, however, is not all: Night Sky with Exit Wounds is not just focused on honestly depicting the experience of being gay, but being gay in America. Words used in close vicinity with "father" in the first section. Enter your email address: Tweets by @StructurexStyle!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)? Apart from several overlaps in the diction of human body parts with the overall analysis, analysis of the first section returns remarkable differences. Need a transcript of this episode? newsletter for analysis you wont find anywhereelse. The line ends with two stressed syllables next to one another, self and die There are also examples of the opposite in Aubade, two unstressed syllables next to one another. Related to the bodys capacity to unify opposing forces is the speakers treatment of gay love in America. Regarding the relationship between his father and mother, the speaker primarily focuses on how loving and physically passionate they were with one another, despite his knowledge that their relationship eventually fell apart and became more and more abusive. May your days be merry andbright. More books than SparkNotes. Constant meditation on the body parts and perpetual questioning of the physical body is a celebrated practice within the religion. Indeed, the body is also a motif that echoes through Whitmans poetry. Snow crackling against the window. In fact, the lyrics are followed by what is happening in the situation. 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). The first of these, enjambment, is a common literary device that is seen in the transition from one line to the next. There are also a few examples of caesurae in this poem. The bed a field of ice. 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 And I love, too, how quickly I was able to find it. Rather than using his standard iambic pentameter, Larkin uses two dactylic feet. Words used in close vicinity with "body." like pieces of a girls dress. Registered No. One of the other things that troubles the speaker immensely throughout the collection is his relationship with his father, as well as his father's relationship with his mother. Though it might seem odd for a child to fixate on his parents sex lives, doing so renders his father as a more sympathetic character and also allows the conflict between his parents to be incorporated into his broader exploration of sex and the body. But there are other equally impressive poems that also address death. In most poems in the collection (notably, Homewrecker and Prayer for the Newly Damned), the love between two boys or two men is presented as something that both participantsor at the very least the speakerknow will lead to upset or violence within their family. There is no courage that can outpace death, nor will whining keep it at bay. Tonight, Ocean Vuong, recently chosen for the prestigious Whiting Award. I check that poets bibliography, find a title that jumps out at me, and bam, read one of the best poems Ive read all year. He fills a teacup with champagne, brings it to her lips. Clearly, all human beings and all other living things will have to face it. Throughout this poem, Larkins speaker focuses on the inevitability of death and what exactly it is that he fears about it. Outside, a soldier spits out his cigarette as footsteps fill the square like stones fallen from the sky. 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 Aubade With a Burning City, he contrasts a scene of two lovers with one of bombing and destruction while Irving Berlins White Christmas plays in the background. 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. Even more complex, however, is the fact that these two alternate stories of the same day are also interweaved with lyrics from Irving Berlin's song "White Christmas"also written in italicswhich the epigraph tells us was the very song that was used as a signal for American forces to evacuate. 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. 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. Immigrant Haibun unfolds as the narrator and his family travel across the ocean, escaping the war-torn city they once lived in; above them, stars symbolize the promise of safety like little centuries opening just long enough for us to slip through. Ocean Vuong, from Night Sky with Exit Wounds (Copper Canyon Press, 2016). Throughout this poem, Larkins speaker takes the reader into his darkest thoughts, those he has early in the morning before the sun comes up. Not to be here. Red sky. And this is how information was passed. In this stanza, the speaker notes how that fear lives just on the edge of vision. Instead, he tackles the narrative with his own worldview, a worldview assembled from real memory fragments in a Homeric approach. Speaker notes how that fear lives just on the body parts and perpetual questioning the. 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