Photo: Peter Bienkowski
Born in 1988 in Saigon, Vietnam, Ocean Vuong was raised by women (a single mother, aunts, and a grandmother) in housing projects throughout Hartford, Connecticut. Coming from an entirely literate family, he is the first to attend university and is currently an undergraduate English Major at Brooklyn College, CUNY.
His first chapbook Burnings was released by Sibling Rivalry Press, 2010. A full-length manuscript American Himnal was a semi-finalist for the 2011 Crab Orchard Series First Book Award. Other honors include an Academy of American Poets award, the Connecticut Poetry Society’s Al Savard Award, as well as four Pushcart Prize nominations. Poems appear in RHINO, diode, Verse Daily, the Collagist, Guernica, South Dakota Review, and Drunken Boat, among others. Work has also been translated into Hindi, Korean, Vietnamese, and Russian.
A devout Buddhist, he is a regular activist for the Tibetan Liberation movement as well as animal-rights awareness and veganism. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
