For the “Briefly Gorgeous” Moment: Imagism and Queer Aesthetics in Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ocean Vuong’s epistolary novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is distinguished by its highly sensory, descriptive, and fragmented linguistic style, coupled with an anachronic, multi-line narrative strategy. These stylistic elements exemplify salient modernist aesthetics, particularly resonating with the tenets of the Imagist movement. Through the presentation of fleeting images and juxtaposed scenes across temporal and spatial boundaries, Vuong’s fiction delineates the narrator’s transient, synesthetic recollections which merge into a dynamic flow of conscious duration, constituting a notable queer racial formalist work. Moreover, Vuong’s richly sensory and affective portrayal facilitates an embodied engagement with external spaces, unraveling the complex layers of the protagonist’s Asian American queer identity. By integrating a corporeal perspective into the aesthetic process of receiving and composing, Vuong reconfigures the traditionally passive bottom role toward a more dynamic and inclusive queer performance, thus challenging the entrenched heteronormative constructions that comply with Western imperialist and masculinist discourses. Beyond empowering the “abject” bottom, Vuong’s novel also posits a shared vulnerability inherent in queer bodies, envisioning a side path for the minoritarian groups.