Ocean Vuong — A Life Worthy of Our Breath

Krista interviewed the wise and wonderful writer Ocean Vuong on March 8, 2020, in a joyful, crowded room full of podcasters in Brooklyn. A state of emergency had just been declared in New York, but no one guessed that within a handful of days such an event would become unimaginable. Most stunning is how presciently, exquisitely Ocean speaks to the world we have come to inhabit— its heartbreak and its poetry, its possibilities for loss and for finding new life. “I want to love more than death can harm. And I want to tell you this often: That despite being so human and so terrified, here, standing on this unfinished staircase to nowhere and everywhere, surrounded by the cold and starless night — we can live. And we will.” Ocean Vuong is the author of a novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, and two collections of poetry, Time Is a Mother and Night Sky with Exit Wounds, which won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Whiting Award. He was a 2019 MacArthur Fellow. This episode last aired on May 3, 2023. ABOUT THE ON BEING PROJECT An adventure in the mystery and the art of living A home for shaping your presence in a tender, tumultuous world A companion to the pleasure in thinking deeply with others A calling to be part of the generative story of our time THE PODCAST Twenty years of culture-shifting classics: Mary Oliver, Desmond Tutu, Thich Nhat Hanh, and many many more. We can be found in ears, and in conversations that matter, around the world. On Being with Krista Tippett: https://onbeing.org/series/podcast/ STAY CONNECTED Instagram:   / onbeing   Facebook:   / onbeing   The Pause Saturday email newsletter: https://onbeing.org/newsletter/ #onbeing #kristatippett #oceanvuong #poet #poetry #life #breath