Ocean Vuong, the 2023-24 Avenali Chair in the Humanities, reads from his poetry and engages with questions from the audience. Vuong is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, among other awards.

His most recent poetry collection, Time is a Mother (2022), was written after the publication of his celebrated novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Vuong's first book of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016), won numerous awards including the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection.

In her New York Times review of Vuong's "remarkable" collection, Michiko Kakutani writes, "There is a powerful emotional undertow to these poems that springs from Mr. Vuong’s sincerity and candor, and from his ability to capture specific moments in time with both photographic clarity and a sense of the evanescence of all earthly things. Whether he is writing about war or family or sex, there is a presentiment of loss — wrought by violence, by misunderstanding or the simple ticking of the calendar and clock."

After an introduction by Sophie Volpp (Departments of East Asian Languages & Cultures and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley), Vuong reads several poems and is joined in conversation with Townsend Center Director Stephen Best (English Department).