Essays On Ocean Vuong, Kaveh Akbar, and the Misguided War on Cynicism Ocean Vuong in New York City, 2019, Photograph, Getty Images It’s perhaps not surprising that American poetry’s A-listers have come, of late, to espouse sincerity as both writing practice and a way of discoursing about writing. Plenty of developments seemed to clear a path for this new wave of earnestness.