Quick Facts
Biography
Ocean Vuong (born Vinh Quoc Vuong; October 14, 1988) is an American poet and essayist. He is a recipient of the 2014 Ruth Lilly/Sargent Rosenberg fellowship from the Poetry Foundation and a 2016 Whiting Award for his poetry.
Personal life
Vuong was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on a rice farm. In 1990, he immigrated to Hartford, Connecticut, United States with six relatives. Vuong, who suspects dyslexia runs in his family, did not learn to read until the age of eleven.
Vuong is openly gay.
Career
Vuong received his B.A. in Nineteenth Century English Literature at Brooklyn College, within the City University of New York system, where he studied under poet and novelist Ben Lerner.
His poems and essays have been published in various journals, including Poetry, The Nation, Tri-Quarterly, Guernica, The Rumpus, Boston Review, and Narrative Magazine.
His first chapbook, Burnings (Sibling Rivalry Press), was a 2011 “Over The Rainbow” selection for notable LGBTQ books by the American Library Association. His second chapbook, No (YesYes Books), was released in 2013. His debut full-length collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, was released by Copper Canyon Press in 2016; as of April that year, the publisher ran a second printing.
Currently, Vuong lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and is an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program for Writers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Awards and fellowships
- Ruth Lilly/Sargent Rosenberg fellowship, 2014
- The Pushcart Prize, 2014
- The Elizabeth George Foundation Fellowship, 2013
- Chad Walsh Prize, Beloit Poetry Journal, 2013
- Stanley Kunitz Prize for Younger Poets, 2012
- Academy of American Poets University and College Poetry Prize, 2010
- The Narrative Prize, 2015
- Whiting Award for Poetry, 2016
- Forward Prize for Poetry Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, 2017
- T. S. Eliot Prize, 2017