Time Is a Mother

it was perfect & wrong,
like money on fire
(American legend)

When they ask me what it's like, I tell them
imagine being born in a hospice
in flames.
The Last Dinosaur, Ocean Vuong

If I were to guess what the most common adjective was to describe works of poetry, I think I'd say "raw." How can you write a poetry collection that is not raw? Even works that seem to be abstracted from the author's experiences are the deepest reflections of what that author values. But with that being said, I don't think I have ever read a poetry collection that is quite so raw as this one was. It was so deeply personal that at times I felt that I shouldn't be reading it at all. But I'm very glad that I did. Despite some of the works being a bit too abstract for me, I thought most of the works were very beautiful.