For our June pick, Zeda Book Club turned to poetry with Night Sky with Exit Wounds, the debut collection by Vietnamese-American poet Ocean Vuong. Published in 2016, the book quickly established Vuong as one of the most distinctive poetic voices of his generation, winning the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award.
His poems are intimate, luminous, and unflinching, exploring war, migration, queerness, family, and love through language that is both delicate and devastating.What immediately struck us in this collection was Vuong’s ability to hold beauty and violence in the same breath. His work is shaped by inherited trauma; the Vietnam War looms over many of these poems, yet he never writes from a distance. Instead, Vuong’s verses are tactile and visceral, drawing on the textures of memory, the body, and desire. Guns, blood, and ghosts are set against images of tenderness and light, as if to remind us that survival itself is an act of beauty.
The collection spans personal and historical terrains. Vuong writes of his family’s migration from Vietnam to the United States, the echoes of war that persist in new lands, and the complexities of queerness in a world marked by violence. Poems like Aubade with Burning City, which overlays the fall of Saigon with the lyrics of White Christmas, showcase his gift for juxtaposition, placing history and intimacy side by side, making us feel both the enormity of war and the quietness of human longing.
But beyond the politics and history, Night Sky with Exit Wounds is deeply personal. There are love poems, elegies, and meditations on masculinity and vulnerability. Vuong’s queerness is not hidden but tenderly rendered, full of yearning and clarity. His language can turn suddenly from brutal to soft, from the ache of loss to the pulse of desire, in just a line or two.
At Zeda Book Club, what we loved most about this collection was its openness. Each poem felt like an invitation to sit in discomfort, to linger in ambiguity, and to accept that beauty and pain often come entangled. We reflected on how Vuong’s work resonated with African contexts too; the legacies of colonialism, war, and displacement, and the silences that ripple across generations.
Verdict
Night Sky with Exit Wounds is not a book to rush through. It rewards slow, careful reading, sometimes even reading aloud, letting the rhythm of the words sink in. Vuong’s imagery is startling, his metaphors unforgettable, and his emotional honesty disarming.
For many of us, this book opened conversations about family legacies, identity, queerness, and what it means to write from the margins with such clarity and grace. It is a collection that stays with you, line after line, long after closing the book.
At Zeda Book Club, reading Vuong reminded us why we gather each month: to sit with stories that challenge us, move us, and deepen our understanding of ourselves and others. Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a breathtaking debut that we recommend for anyone who wants to experience the full range of what poetry can do.
Zeda Book Club is open to women to join. We café hop and read a new book each month. We meet on the first Sunday of every month in Nairobi. Join the group here. Happy reading!
