Point of View

The majority of the poems in the collection are written from a speaker who employs first person pronouns. The reader might identify this speaker as a single entity, and might also draw lines between the speaker and the poet himself, Ocean Vuong. Over the course of the collection, this speaker’s voice becomes increasingly embodied on the page. For example, the reader learns that the speaker has recently lost his mother. The poems “Snow Theory,” “Rise & Shine,” “Not Even,” “Amazon History of a Former Nail Salon Worker,” “Reasons for Staying,” and “Dear Rose” deal with this relationship, and the speaker’s loss and grief most explicitly. The reader also garners that the speaker has spent time in a rehab facility. The poems “Dear Peter,” “Rise & Shine,” and “Reasons for Staying” allude to or specifically describe this experience, as well as the speaker’s struggles with...