
Time Is a Mother
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Narrated by:
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Ocean Vuong
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By:
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Ocean Vuong
About this listen
"Take your time with these poems, and return to them often.” —The Washington Post
The New York Times-bestselling collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean Vuong
How else do we return to ourselves but to fold
The page so it points to the good part
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of personal and social loss, embodying the paradox of sitting in grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave, and propulsive, these poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicenter of the break.
The author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds, winner of the 2016 Whiting Award, the 2017 T. S. Eliot Prize, and a 2019 MacArthur fellowship, Vuong writes directly to our humanity without losing sight of the current moment. These poems represent a more innovative and daring experimentation with language and form, illuminating how the themes we perennially live in and question are truly inexhaustible. Bold and prescient, and a testament to tenderness in the face of violence, Time Is a Mother is a return and a forging forth all at once.
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Critic reviews
“In this highly anticipated second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong ruminates on time. It becomes a character of its own, both an obstacle and motherly, something that can nurture and hold. Written in the aftermath of his mother’s death, Vuong’s poems are raw with grief and darkness, but there are radical moments of joy and resilience even through that. Through these poems, Vuong sings loud and clear of everything worth living for and discovering—just as vividly as he did in his critically acclaimed titles On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Night Sky With Exit Wounds.” —NPR, “Books We Love”
“That’s the essence of Vuong’s talent: he alchemizes deeply individual experiences with universal emotions into what is both familiar and new. . . . We need no more proof of Vuong’s importance in the poetic canon.” —Chicago Review of Books
“Vuong’s powerful follow-up to Night Sky with Exit Wounds does more than demonstrate poetic growth: it deepens and extends an overarching project with 27 new poems that reckon with loss and impermanence . . . This fantastic book will reward fans while winning this distinctive poet new ones.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Featured Article: On the Other Side of Grief with Ocean Vuong
In his latest poetry collection, Ocean Vuong gives language to the most universally human experience: grief. We understand the feeling, but in order for us to wrap our heads around it, the definition must be somewhat malleable. Grief can be whatever you need it to be. It’s helpful to think of grief as a longing for the moments and experiences that could have been and all the things left unsaid. We’ve all had something to grieve—and ironically enough, the thing that could return the feeling of connection we need is grief itself.
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- Poetry in the Natural World
- By: Ada Limon - editor introduction
- Narrated by: Kim Ramirez
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In recent years, our poetic landscape has evolved in profound and exciting ways. So has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limon, this book challenges what we think we know about "nature poetry," illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing. You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation's most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more.
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Smoke and Ashes
- Opium's Hidden Histories
- By: Amitav Ghosh
- Narrated by: Ranjit Madgavkar
- Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the precious commodity carried in enormous quantities on those currents: opium. Most surprising of all, however, was the discovery that his own identity and family history were swept up in the story. Smoke and Ashes is at once a travelogue, a memoir, and an essay in history, drawing on decades of archival research.
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Interesting Research, Terrible Reading
- By Paula de la Cruz on 03-09-24
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Manicurist's Daughter
- A Memoir
- By: Susan Lieu
- Narrated by: Susan Lieu
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Susan Lieu has long been searching for answers. About her family’s past and about her own future. Refugees from the Vietnam War, Susan’s family escaped to California in the 1980s after five failed attempts. Upon arrival, Susan’s mother was their savvy, charismatic North Star, setting up two successful nail salons and orchestrating every success—until Susan was eleven. That year, her mother died from a botched tummy tuck. After the funeral, no one was ever allowed to talk about her or what had happened.
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Fantastic book and performance
- By Anonymous User on 03-14-25
By: Susan Lieu
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Modern Poetry
- Poems
- By: Diane Seuss
- Narrated by: Diane Seuss
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Diane Seuss's signature voice—audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude—has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but ill-equipped student, one who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those often underrepresented.
By: Diane Seuss
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Postcolonial Love Poem
- Poems
- By: Natalie Diaz
- Narrated by: Natalie Diaz
- Length: 1 hr and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Postcolonial Love Poem, the brilliant second collection from Natalie Diaz, holds in its pages the urgent appeal for all bodies―bodies of lovers, family, enemies, as well as of language and rivers and land―to be held dearly. In her lyrical landscape, Diaz tenderly prods the wounds inflicted by America onto its Indigenous peoples.
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Divine and Duende
- By Amazon Customer on 11-17-23
By: Natalie Diaz
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Water, Water
- Poems
- By: Billy Collins
- Narrated by: Billy Collins
- Length: 1 hr and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life.
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Billy Collins is charming witty and somewhat irreverent.
- By Kathryn Grammer on 04-18-25
By: Billy Collins
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The Hurting Kind
- By: Ada Limón
- Narrated by: Ada Limón
- Length: 1 hr and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves—from National Book Critics Circle Award winner, National Book Award finalist and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.
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The Beauty of her insights
- By Tom on 07-30-24
By: Ada Limón
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Great Heroes and Heroines of Hawaiian Heritage
- By: Leilani Basham, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Leilani Basham
- Length: 2 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
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In the six lectures of Great Heroes and Heroines of Hawaiian Heritage, you will meet some of the key figures of Hawaiian history from the 19th and 20th centuries, a tumultuous period in Hawaii’s transformation from a secluded group of independent islands to the 50th US state and a bustling tourist destination. With Leilani Basham of the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa as your guide, you’ll be introduced to the political leaders, scholars, activists, and artists who have been integral to Hawaii’s story and the preservation of Hawaiian culture.
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This great!
- By Amazon Customer on 05-15-25
By: Leilani Basham, and others
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Poetry Unbound
- 50 Poems to Open Your World
- By: Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Narrated by: Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tumult of our contemporary moment, poetry has emerged as an inviting, consoling outlet with a unique power to move and connect us, to inspire fury, tears, joy, laughter, and surprise. This generous anthology pairs fifty illuminating poems with poet and podcast host Pádraig Ó Tuama's appealing, unhurried reflections. With keen insight and warm personal anecdotes, Ó Tuama considers each poem's artistry and explores how its meaning can reach into our own lives.
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Praise to Pádraig O Tuama
- By Marilyn Hargrove on 02-01-23
By: Pádraig Ó Tuama
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Trick Mirror
- Reflections on Self-Delusion
- By: Jia Tolentino
- Narrated by: Jia Tolentino
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity.
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Couldn’t stop listening
- By Alice on 08-25-19
By: Jia Tolentino
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Devotions
- The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
- By: Mary Oliver
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver presents a personal selection of her best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career.
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Humanity’s connection to all life.
- By Anonymous User on 02-25-25
By: Mary Oliver
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The Poems of T. S. Eliot
- Read by Jeremy Irons
- By: T. S. Eliot
- Narrated by: Jeremy Irons, Dame Eileen Atkins
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons' perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity. Major poems range from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' through the post-war desolation of 'The Waste Land' and the spiritual struggle of 'Ash-Wednesday', to the enduring charm of 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.
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Horribly Frustrating to Follow
- By AVS on 06-18-18
By: T. S. Eliot
Exaltation
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Another Amazing Ocean Vuong
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solomn
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bold use of language
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Ocean Vuong needs no review!
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O...My God
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Good storyline, poor narrative structure.
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Worth a read but a miserable listen
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The terrible narration
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