Point of View

Most of the poems in Night Sky With Exit Wounds are written from the first person singular point of view of a main speaker, which creates a cohesive voice throughout the book. This main speaker has a number of similarities to Ocean Vuong, such as his name, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity. The poems written from the main speaker's perspective are often personal, and focused on various aspects of his life. He focuses on his family, often describing moments he shared with one or both of his parents at different ages. In the latter two sections of the collection his poems feature examinations of gay sexuality, both through descriptions of brief sexual encounters and of longterm relationships. His Vietnamese heritage is also of great importance to the speaker, and poems like "Daily Bread" and "Notebook Fragments" describe his relationship to Vietnam. The fact that the majority...