In a poem addressed to this type of person, this person “must bear the scent of its corpses / salted & crusted a year in a jar” while preparing fish sauce. For 10 points each:
[10h] Name this type of person that Little Dog writes letters to in a novel by Ocean Vuong. Vuong’s poetry collection titled Time is a [this type of person] was published in 2023.
ANSWER: mother [or mom; accept Time is a Mother; accept Ocean Vuong’s mother; prompt on family member; prompt on, but DO NOT REVEAL, Rose or “Dear Rose” by asking “how is she related to the narrator?”]
[10m] Vuong’s father chases his mother in “The Last Prom Queen in Antarctica,” which quotes the line “I myself am hell” from this other poem. In this Robert Lowell poem, the title animal “jabs her wedge-head in a cup / of sour cream.”
ANSWER: “Skunk Hour”
[10e] Vuong’s mother took as her English name this flower, described as “so / familiar it’s almost synthetic red / plastic petals dewed with glue.” Robert Burns wrote a poem titled for “A Red, Red” one of these flowers.
ANSWER: roses [accept “A Red, Red Rose”; accept “Dear Rose”]
<Editors, American Literature>