Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Institut für Anglistik/Amerikanistik

Seminar: Introduction to Literary Studies II (BA.AA.LW01)

Instructor: Dr. Carolin Böttcher
SoSe 2023

Exploring Identity through Poetic Forms: A Comparative

Analysis of Ocean Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean
Vuong” and Raymond Antrobus’s “Dear Hearing World”

Gaja Kornecka
Student ID: 204926
B.A. Anglistik/ Amerikanistik/ Slawistik
gaja.kornecka@uni-jena.de

Date of submission: 27 August 2023

Table of contents

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1

2. Ocean Vuong and Raymond Antrobus: Poets and Their Works................................................. 1

2.1 Brief Biography of Ocean Vuong ........................................................................................... 1

2.2 “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”: Themes and Context .................................................... 2

2.3 Brief Biography of Raymond Antrobus ................................................................................ 3

2.4 “Dear Hearing World”: Themes and Context ....................................................................... 3

3. Analysis of Poems .......................................................................................................................... 4

3.1 Analysis of “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”...................................................................... 4

3.1.1 Examples of Symbolism in “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”.................................... 4

3.2 Analysis of “Dear Hearing World” by Raymond Antrobus ................................................. 7

3.2.1 The Importance of Addressing “Dear Hearing World” ............................................... 7

3.2.2 Examples of Symbolism in “Dear Hearing World” ...................................................... 7

3.3 Comprehensive Analysis of the Topic of Identity in “Somebody I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”
and “Dear Hearing World” ................................................................................................................ 8

3.3.1 Comparison of the Themes and Lyrical Devices in Both Poems ................................ 8

4. Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 10

Declaration of academic integrity ...................................................................................................... 11

 1. Introduction

Literature provides an opportunity for exploration of human existence, delving into the
complexities of identity, culture and personal experience. Poetry, with its unique intensi-
ty and ambiguity, enables authors to convey emotions, societal perspectives and chal-
lenges. This term paper delves into different portrayals of identity and representation,
underlining different forms and techniques in which they were expressed, through the
poems “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” by Ocean Vuong and “Dear Hearing World” by
Raymond Antrobus. Both authors are contemporary poets, who, in the mentioned po-
ems, combine their social background and experience with the multifaced dimensions of
character, marginalization, and the seek to belonging. My exploration of the work of the
two authors will center on how Ocean Vuong and Raymond Antrobus employ poetic
forms to navigate questions of identity in their poems.

The interest and curiosity to explore poetry as a medium to articulate the per-
sonal experiences of marginalized groups was the key factor that inspired the topic of
this term paper. “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”, which can be interpreted as an auto-
biographical poem, provides an insight into the life of a Vietnamese migrant, who also is
a gay man living in the United States (Winter, 2016). Raymond Antrobus’s “Dear Hearing
World”, shares a perspective on the experience of the deaf community navigating the
everyday challenges they meet while existing in a society primarily focused on the hear-
ing part of the population (Sethi, 2019). This term paper presents the focus on the na-
tional, sexual and linguistic minorities in both poems by analyzing their stylistic and
metaphorical constructs and narrative choices. Through “Someday I’ll Love Ocean
Vuong”, Vuong explores self-acceptance amidst past violence and challenges of belong-
ing, while Antrobus uses “Dear Hearing Word” to confront societal disregard for the deaf
community. Moreover, in order to acquire more background information about the po-
ets, I will examine secondary sources dealing with their upbringing as well as their
work.

2. Ocean Vuong and Raymond Antrobus: Poets and Their Works

2.1 Brief Biography of Ocean Vuong

“Vuong, who was born on a Vietnamese rice farm and came to [the United States] as a

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refugee at age 2, burst onto the literary scene in 2016 with ‘Night Sky with Exit
Wounds.’” (Wolk, 2020) It is this collection of poems, where we also find “Someday I’ll
Love Ocean Vuong”. Some of the central motifs of this, and other of his publications, for
example the novel “One Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous”, are (toxic) masculinity and the
experiences of war. The second can be described as “the lasting generational impact of
the Vietnam War” in his family (ibid.) David Winter, in an interview with Vuong, writes
that Vuong’s family members hold a significant presence within his literary creations,
where he often delves into the roles and boundaries of memory, especially since it con-
nects to individual and historical trauma (Winter, 2016). Ocean Vuong’s mother and
grandmother are the people who he grew up with, since his father was not present in his
life during his childhood (Tolentino, 2019). The poet, whose grandfather was an Ameri-
can soldier during the Vietnam War, spoke about what influence this aspect has on his
life in the interview for PBS: “the interesting and tense relationship I have with the war
is that, without it, I wouldn’t be here.” (Vuong qtd. in Sreenivasan, 2016) In a different
interview, Vuong also mentions the troubles with self-acceptance and self-confidence as
an Asian migrant growing up in the part of the US such as New England (Wolk, 2020).
This is a theme that is also present in his work, for instance, in the already mentioned
“Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”.

2.2 “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”: Themes and Context

I would now like to concentrate on the themes and context of the poem “Someday I’ll
Love Ocean Vuong”. The author himself explains that in this poem, his idea was to “speak
to [his] own shadow.” (Vuong qtd. in Winter, 2016) This gives some context as to why
the author names the lyrical voice in his poem “Ocean” (Vuong, 2016: 1,8,29). The indi-
cations of Vuong’s family are common in his poetry, as I mentioned in the Section 2.1 of
this term paper. When asked about the frequent references of his father in the chapbook
“Night Sky with Exit Wounds”, which can also be find in the poem “Someday I’ll Love
Ocean Vuong” in the lines “Don’t worry. Your father is only your father / until one of you
forgets.” (Vuong, 2016: 4-5), the author answers that he always craved speaking to his
family on the same linguistic level as his, which unfortunately was impossible because
his family did not speak English and only spoke “in a third-grade-level Vietnamese.”
(Vuong qtd. in Winter, 2016) He then goes on saying “I saw the poem as a way to speak

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to them – but only in and through artifice. It’s as if, in an alternative reality in which they
could understand English, this is what I would say to my father.” (ibid.) In the same in-
terview, Vuong also reveals the message behind the statements about his sexuality,
which, in “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”, can be found towards the middle of the po-
em (Vuong, 2016: 17-23). It can be noticed that these utterances, such as, for example,
“Here’s a man / whose arms are wide enough to gather / your leaving” (ibid.), are filled
with ambiguity. He explains that they capture most accurately what it is like, being a
queer individual in today’s world, when they are formulated using “double, triple en-
tendre” (Vuong qtd. in Winter, 2016), since being queer means for Vuong, being a person
that is always in a process, and somehow always changing (ibid.).

2.3 Brief Biography of Raymond Antrobus

On the official website of the author Raymond Antrobus, we can find information about
his background, namely that he is half British, half Jamaican ("Raymond Antrobus”, n.d.
accessed August 21, 2023). There is, however, another aspect of his personas also worth
mentioning; Antrobus “was born deaf” (Sethi, 2019), and in his adult life, deafness be-
came a reoccurring theme in his poetry and other work. He seems to have an interest
especially in "a narrative that succinctly conveys the isolation of deafness but also the
complexity of sensory experience" (Stevenson, 2020: 119). On his website, we can also
learn that Antrobus is active as a spokesman for different deaf charities, for example,
Deaf Kidz International as well as National Deaf Children's Society ("Raymond Antro-
bus", n.d. accessed August 21, 2023).

2.4 “Dear Hearing World”: Themes and Context

In an interview with Anita Sethi for The Guardian, Antrobus reveals that his poem “Dear
Hearing World” was inspired by a different poem “Dear White America” by Danez Smith
(Sethi, 2019), which, according to the author Smith, is supposed to confront the urgent
need for awakening and for recognition of the structures that have facilitated violence
against black individuals in the US (Smith qtd. in Segal, 2015). Antrobus explains that he
first wrote the poem “as a rant” to strongly express what he went through as a deaf child
in a society more centered around hearing people (Sethi, 2019). This is emphasized in a

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few places in the poem, though probably most clearly in the line “your magic master
trick hearing world – drowning out the quiet, / bursting all speech bubbles in my graph-
ic childhood” (Antrobus, 2019: 34-35). In the same interview, the poet also shared: “I
know what it’s like to have to felt ashamed, to try to hide my deafness. I wasn’t owning
it. Finding a way to assert that part of me has been a mechanism that my survival has
depended on.” (Antrobus qtd. in Sethi, 2019) This could explain the importance of shar-
ing his thoughts and general frustration with what he describes as the “hearing world”.

3. Analysis of Poems
3.1 Analysis of “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”

After getting acquainted with the two poets and the context and themes of their work,
we will now concentrate more deeply on how the lyrical expressions I chose emphasize
poets’ focus on exploring and expressing own identities. In this section, we will first em-
bark on a comprehensive analysis of the poem “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” by
Ocean Vuong. Considering the length of Vuong’s poem, it would not be possible for me in
this term paper to precisely analyze every lyrical expression in “Someday I’ll Love Ocean
Vuong”. Therefore, for the sake of brevity and clarity of my analysis, I will only concen-
trate on three, in my opinion, crucial expressions.

3.1.1 Examples of Symbolism in “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong”

The first lyrical expressions in “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” that I will concentrate
on, because of their connection to the topic of identity, are the first three lines of the po-
em: “Ocean, don’t be afraid. / The end of the road is so far ahead / it is already behind
us.” (Vuong, 2016: 1-3) The lines, though at the very beginning of this piece of lyric, give
an overall sense of what the poem is about. Namely, the acceptance of the struggle with
the trauma of the past and the seemingly unreachable goal of the lyrical speaker, there-
for the author himself, which is self-love and self-acceptance. The common presence of
enjambments in this poem, begins within the very first two lines, after the word “ahead”
(ibid.). I noticed how the enjambement in this place creates tense and dramatic effect
but also the feeling that this phrase could be read as two separate phrases that somehow
fit and oppose each other at the same time. This picture is emphasized by the contradict-

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ing terms “ahead” in the second line and “behind” in the third. What is interesting about
these terms is how the emotion they are associated with in this context are the exact
opposite of how they usually are interpreted. More precisely, the adjective “ahead” is
normally interpreted as rather positive or comforting and “behind” as negative or de-
rogatory. However, if we look at these two lines and the phrase “end of the road” as a
metaphor for the acceptance of one’s past issues and oneself in general, then all of a
sudden, the adjective “behind” is a more positive one and “ahead” is negative. The para-
doxical nature of this fragment is expressed even more by the oxymoron that the whole
phrase represents. Namely, if we look closer the “end of the road” that is “ahead” and
“behind” at the same time is a self-contradiction. This could be an allusion to how com-
plicated and conflicting sometimes achieving the goal of self-love and acceptance can be:
on the one hand one should keep in mind and work through all the negative thoughts
that surround them. On the other hand, for the sake of own mental health, it is also im-
portant to just leave the past behind and concentrate on the presence. This can be a rea-
sonable hypothesis, since as I mentioned in the Section 2.1, Ocean Vuong is open about
his struggles with self-acceptance.

Another interesting aspect of first line, which, exactly like the title, contains the
real name of the author, Ocean Vuong. The name “Ocean” also appears in the lines eight
and twenty-nine of the poem. Even though the reader should not typically assume that
the voice narrating the poem is in some way associated with the author himself, I am
convinced that in the case of “Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong”, it is fair to make this con-
nection or even to interpret the whole lyrical piece as a form of free verse letter from
Vuong to his younger self from the past, as well as his present self. What makes this as-
sumption more plausible, is what I already mentioned in the Section 2.1 of this term pa-
per, namely the fact that the poet himself refers to “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” as a
poem in which he is speaking “to [his] own shadow.” (Vuong qtd. in Winter, 2016) We
could go even further and precise that, because of the verb “love” in the title, it is a love
letter from Ocean Vuong to Ocean Vuong. This would support the theory I set that this
whole lyrical piece is a way in which the author tries to cope with his personal challeng-
es by expressing the difficulty of accepting his identity.

The next passage I want to analyze is the reference of a man with whom Vuong
has an intimate relationship with since it symbolizes the importance of openness about

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sexual orientation for Vuong’s identity. The lines I refer to are lines seventeen till twen-
ty-three: “Here’s a man/ whose arms are wide enough to gather/ your leaving. & here
the moment,/ just after the lights go out, when you can still see/ the faint torch between
his legs./ How you use it again & again/ to find your own hands.” (Vuong, 2016: 17-23)
The first thing about this extract that catches reader’s attention, is its ambiguous charac-
ter. In Section 2.2 of this term paper, I mentioned the ambiguity being a conscious deci-
sion in order to reflect the changing and devolving nature of queer people in Vuong’s
eyes (Vuong qtd. in Winter, 2016). The lyrical expressions “whose arms are wide enough
to gather/ your leaving.” and “How you use it again & again/ to find your own hands.”
reflect Vuong’s ability to find tranquility and a sense of belonging by being intimate with
the man he refers to. The phrase “the moment, / just after the lights go out, when you
can still see/ the faint torch between his legs.” in which “the faint torch” is a metaphor
for male genitalia, refers to author’s uncertainty and confusion, being replaced with clar-
ity and a sense of direction within himself after the act of love and passion.

The third phrase I want to critically dissect are the lines “Don’t be afraid, the gun-
fire/ is only the sound of people/ trying to live a little longer/ & failing.” (Vuong, 2016:
26-29) These lines are another indicator for the leading theme of generational trauma as
an effect of the war, as well as the challenges that come with belonging to a national mi-
nority and their role in Vuong’s sense of identity. Beginning with the phrase “Don’t be
afraid”, this is a further example of the author comforting himself in this poem. This time
it seems that the focus lies in having troubles in understanding and accepting the ab-
surdity of war and the effect it had on his family. That is why the poet chooses to look at
the brutality of the war from another perspective, namely by saying that people that are
involved in a war are mostly only trying to survive. He underlines the meaninglessness
of such action in the line twenty-nine by saying that nevertheless they often fail. This
segment of the poem is also a further example for the common use for contradictions,
more precisely oxymorons, which express the changes taking place within the author.
This tendency to “reformulate” or “rethink” the negative or confusing facts about his
persona and the things that happened to him, and his family, aims to help Vuong to cope
with the trauma and tension that surrounds it; to help accept his own identity and find
self-love.

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 3.2 Analysis of “Dear Hearing World” by Raymond Antrobus
3.2.1 The Importance of Addressing “Dear Hearing World”

As I mentioned in the Introduction of this term paper, I also want to analyze passages
from Antrobus’s poem “Dear Hearing World” which, in my opinion, highlights the focus
on the topic of identity and linguistic minority. The poem is a strong critique on the soci-
ety for disregarding the deaf community. The direct addressing from the very beginning
of the poem, for example in the usage of “and many of you won’t know the difference”
(Antrobus, 2019: 4-5), sets the tone for the poem and highlights Antrobus’s intention to
communicate his thoughts and experiences. Because of that, the poem takes the form of
an open letter and with that highlights the importance of its message, which is the need
for more awareness and inclusion when it comes to the members of the deaf community.

3.2.2 Examples of Symbolism in “Dear Hearing World”

Antrobus uses vivid imagery to show off the complexities of deafness and of the com-
munication in general, as for example, the phrase I already mentioned in the Section 2.4
of this paper, “your magic master trick hearing world – drowning out the quiet,/ burst-
ing all speech bubbles in my graphic childhood,” (Antrobus, 2019: 34-35). The hyperbole
“magic master trick hearing world” is used to display the inequality between the “hear-
ing world” and the “not-hearing world”. By metaphorically saying “bursting all speech
bubbles in my graphic childhood”, Antrobus sheds light on the disruption of communica-
tion and the isolation experienced by the deaf. The comparison to a comic with expres-
sions like “speech bubbles” and “graphic childhood” underline the vulnerability of all
children, including the deaf children. In this poem, Antrobus tries to convey the fact that
all people are equal since we all will eventually die, regardless of our linguistic abilities,
of whether we are able to hear or not. This is most clear in lines “We are/ indeed the
same volume, all of us eventually fade.” (Antrobus, 2019: 5-6) where “the same volume”
is a metaphor for “equal” and “fade” for death.

What is also important in the context of identity in Antrobus’s poetry is that the
poet reflects on his experiences with embarrassment for his condition and the fact that
he managed to overcome it. The quote “You erased what could have always been poet-

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ry./ You taught me I was inferior to standard English expression -/ I was a broken
speaker, you were never a broken interpreter-“ (Antrobus, 2019:43-45) expresses the
struggle of many deaf individuals who have been made to feel inadequate or simply
“worse than others” due to the differences in their language expression. By using the
phrase “You erased what could have always been poetry,” the poet sheds light on the
self-awareness of his (and many others) linguistic richness. He argues that many mem-
bers of the deaf community could become great writers and poets, if they were not mar-
ginalized by the “hearing world” and received enough education and resources. Overall,
by challenging the societal perception of deaf individuals as linguistically deficient,
Raymond Antrobus appeals for empathy and change, and in a way reclaims the justice
and validity of sign language and his own linguistic heritage.

3.3 Comprehensive Analysis of the Topic of Identity in “Somebody I’ll Love

Ocean Vuong” and “Dear Hearing World”
3.3.1 Comparison of the Themes and Lyrical Devices in Both Poems

Both “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong” and “Dear Hearing World” explore not only the
theme of identity but also belonging and representation. Vuong’s poem delves into the
struggles with self-acceptance, the abandonment by own parent, the presence of the
generational trauma because of the experiences of the war and exile, as well as the crav-
ing for finding a mutual language fluency with his own family. Antrobus’s poem address-
es the craving for finding a mutual language with the “hearing world”, meaning finding
ways in which the members of the deaf community will be included and accepted. It also
communicates the unjust treatment Antrobus faced being a deaf child and what chal-
lenges such treatment set for his educational journey. Thus, we can consider the strug-
gles with self-acceptance, beginning with negative childhood experiences, and occurring
in a member of a minority to be a theme that both poems share. Another similar theme
is the critique on certain social events or behaviors such as war or discrimination and
ignorance towards a group of people, and different social expectations of the authors
because of that. Regarding the stylistic devices, both authors use enjambments to accel-
erate the pace of their poems but also to enhance the effect of urgency and dramatism.
Furthermore, Vuong tends to use oxymorons to mirror his internal conflicts, while An-

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trobus employs direct addressing, vivid imagery and metaphors to communicate the
importance of his message.

4. Conclusion
In conclusion, both poets, Ocean Vuong and Raymond Antrobus, employ their poems to
explore the topics of identity and representation. Vuong’s “Someday I’ll Love Ocean
Vuong” portrays the struggles of a journey toward self-acceptance amidst generational
trauma and personal struggles as a member of a national and sexual minority in the
country he lives in. Antrobus’s “Dear Hearing World”, on the other hand, challenges the
social ignorance towards the deaf community, appealing for inclusivity and validation of
linguistic minorities. Because of the poetic forms both authors use, such as enjamb-
ments, oxymorons or metaphors, the readers can better relate to and understand the
multifaced dimensions of experiences and identities of people of different minorities.

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Bibliography

Antrobus, Raymond. The Perseverance. London: Penned in The Margins, 2019.

Raymond Antrobus. http://www.raymondantrobus.com/bio (accessed August 21,

2023).

Segal, Corinne. Poet Danez Smith Issues a Wake-Up Call to White America.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/poetry/poet-danez-smith-issues-a-wake-
up-call-to-white-america (accessed August 23, 2023)

Sethi, Anita. Raymond Antrobus: ’In Some Ways, Poetry Is My First Language’.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/28/raymond-antrobus-the-
perseverance-poetry-interview (accessed August 21, 2023)

Sreenivasan, Hari. Vietnamese American Poet Contemplates His Personal Ties to the War.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/vietnamese-american-poet-contemplates-
his-personal-ties-to-the-war (accessed August 17, 2023).

Stevenson, Deborah. "Antrobus, Raymond: ‘Cab Bears Ski?’" Bulletin of the Center for
Children's Books 74:3 (2020), 119.

Tolentino, Jia. “Fireproof.” The New Yorker. June 10 & 17, 2019.

Vuong, Ocean. Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Cayon Press,
2016.

Winter, David. “Surviving the Survival: Ocean Vuong on Exploring Fear, His Family, and
Why Turing Your Back on Your Work Is a Good Idea.” Poetry Foundation. August
10, 2016.

Wolk, Martin. "When Everything Changed: Novelist Ocean Vuong Reflects on a Year of
Intense Highs and Lows." Los Angeles Times. January 8, 2020.

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Declaration of Academic Integrity

Hiermit erkläre ich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbst angefertigt und alle von mir
benutzten Hilfsmittel und Quellen angegeben habe; alle wörtlichen Zitate und Entleh-
nungen sind als solche gekennzeichnet.

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