Artist Spotlight: Ocean Vuong

In this interview, the poet Ocean Vuong discusses his career and experience as a teacher and as a writer. He talks about anger, and how care evolves out of anger. How his work evolves out of imperfection and vulnerability. Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, is a queer Vietnamese American and a practicing Buddhist.

No one really saves us in this world, but people give us the tools so that we can transform towards our own rescue. —Ocean Vuong.

For me, this is the essence of Buddhist enlightenment.