Vuong and Soto write not away from but into traumas mundane and spectacular. By installing the poem with an elegiac force that refutes pacification, that pairs grief and rage, they actualize a style of writing that is against doom—“Ocean. Ocean, / get up”—and one that is bent on illuminating the art of living on in the midst of an illogical and all-too-logical terror—”He sounded like he loved me.” To write is to live on. The page rescues us from a longing for finality. Grief doesn’t wholly assail our imaginations. The creative drive, the artistic impulse, is above all a thunderous yes to life.
