with Steve Luttrell, editor, &  John Liddy, editor of this special issue

Three questions from Steve Luttrell

What was it that first brought you to poetry?
Who were some of your earliest influences?

I came from a poor family in Hai Duong province. My ancestors for many generations received grants from the kings, so they followed the king’s orders. My great-grandfather followed Nguyen Thien Thuat to rise up in arms against the French and sacrificed his life while protecting the Bai Say base in 1877. From then on, up to the 7th, 8th, and 9th generations, there were 3 people who passed doctorates in Confucianism and served as Prime Minister and Minister of the Le Dynasty, from 17th to 18th century. There are 3 poets, 2 writers, 1 Agronomy researcher. All of them are directly related to me and all have works left behind. Therefore, I was raised in the cultural atmosphere of my family. “The Tale of Kieu” by Nguyen Du brought me to poetry and the first person to influence me was poet Nguyen Du, a profound influence until now. At the age of 10, I memorized the entire book “The Tale of Kieu” with 3,254 verses and learned to write poetry in the style of Nguyen Du. Since I was 16 years old (1960), I have published poems in newspapers.

President Ho Chi Minh wrote poetry. Have you read his poetry and if so, what was your opinion of it? 

I have read many times and also memorized many of Ho Chi Minh’s articles (works). As the supreme leader of the resistance war against the French, since 1946, he had written many simple songs which were easy to understand and remember, to assemble and guide the people to fight the enemy, and also wrote many scholarly poems, according to the classical tradition of Vietnamese poetry. His poetry and songs are immortal heritages of Vietnamese culture.

What do you feel gives Vietnamese poetry its essentially distinct voice?

That is the very rich soul and miraculous language of Vietnamese people. If you read through the translation, you may not be able to fully see the very distinct tone of Vietnamese poetry, containing many layers of meaning. I see that very clearly through many of my poems translated into foreign languages. 

Questions from John

Could you briefly sketch the origin and current state of Vietnamese poetry. I know there is a book in this question but if you could make some salient points, it would be interesting for our readers

Vietnamese folk poetry dates back to very ancient times, but the poems of authors still named today are poems from the Ly Dynasty, 11th century. First written in Chinese characters, then in Nom (characters of the Vietnamese people, derived from Chinese characters) and then in French from the 19th century. Next is the Vietnamese characters (originating from the Latin word). In any language, according to any trend, even with the influence of foreign trends, Vietnamese poetry at all times has great authors with a very strong Vietnamese charm. Currently, Vietnamese poetry is integrating very effectively with poetry around the world.

The themes of rebellion and independence can be found in the unnamed poem written by Ly Thuong Kiet, a Vietnamese general during the Ly dynasty, the poem is considered to be Vietnam’s first declaration of independence after being invaded by China’s Song dynasty. The above themes continued to be important to Vietnamese poets right up to the 20th century. Are those themes prevalent today?

Patriotic anti-invasion poetry is the biggest theme of Vietnamese poetry, from the time of Ngo Quyen, the first person to defeat the Southern Han invaders, establishing independence for the Vietnamese nation since the 10th century. Until now, this is still the main flow of Vietnamese poetry. However, nowadays, Vietnamese poetry has integrated with the world, many poems belonging to other modern trends have supplemented and dominated the poetry scene. The poem considered Vietnam’s first Declaration of Independence that you mentioned above was not written by Ly Thuong Kiet but it existed at least 95 years before Ly Thuong Kiet. In 98, general Le Hoan, during the Former Le Dynasty, commanded the battle against the Song army on Cau River. One night before the battle, at the confluence, the soldiers heard that poem. 95 years later, in 1076, Ly Thuong Kiet, as well as Le Hoan, commanded the battle against the Song army on Cau River. The night before the battle, the soldiers heard the poem again at the confluence. The national history clearly stated that and all recorded it as “legendary” (meaning it’s not known whether that event is true or not?) without recording who the author was. On Vietnamese Poetry Day, 2009, the full moon day of the first lunar month, (the day is considered the most sacred of the year, similar to Lunar New Year), Associate Professor Bui Duy Tan, my teacher at the University of Hanoi, before passing away from cancer, asked his son to take him to the Thai Mieu house, Temple of Literature in Thang Long – Hanoi. After burning incense and praying (which I accompanied him), he officially apologised to the entire Vietnamese people, to generations of teachers and students. For about half a century, he and other associates have written Ly Thuong Kiet’s name under the poem in textbooks at all levels of education, from elementary school to university. After that, many years later, textbooks at all levels recorded this poem as an anonymous poem.

This issue is an example of cross-cultural ties and of building bridges. Are Vietnamese poets more open to being published or translated in Western countries? I’m also wondering if there is much contact between Vietnamese poets and Chinese poets today and what is the situation with Russian poets? 

Since Doi Moi (1986), more and more Vietnamese works have been translated and published in Western countries, including France and the US. Even my poetry has been printed in a separate volume in France and another volume in French in Canada, and a collection of poetry in the US. All released internationally, along with my German and Spanish poetry collections. I have been to Russia once, to China 6 times, published poetry 3 times in the Soviet Union and Russia, and once printed an anthology with more than 200 pages of poetry in Beijing, China. Russian and Chinese poets, along with poets from other countries, have come to Vietnam many times, and vice versa, and they still do, in a traditionally warm and practical relationship.

There are many poems that relate to Vietnam’s relationship with war but there is also a rich history of cultural and intellectual poetry. Can you elaborate?

Vietnam is a country that always has to defeat invaders who are many times stronger than ourselves. Poetry about war (actually poetry about fighting against war of aggression) is so popular that many adults and children memorised it. And in each period, that poetry is supplemented with many new elements, which you say is “cultural and intellectually rich”. That’s very true. Yesterday’s enemies can now be your friends. Even your “comprehensive strategy” friend. Tolerance and kindness, closing the past and stepping into the future together, is a long-standing tradition of the Vietnamese people.

In this special issue there are six women poets. Has there always been a strong female voice in Vietnamese poetry and how strong is that voice today? 

It’s also common sense. Because of gender equality in terms of intellectual creativity exists in all fields, including poetic composition. I have a poem: “Human beings are the tears / Of Gloomy Lord falling to earth / The tears on the left are women / The tears on the right are men / They mix together and become immense…” “Gloomy God” is my creation, referring to a supernatural force, such as God. Although the left hand is weaker than the right hand, it is stronger in spirit, because it is closer to the heart. So, it is inevitable that women write poetry. But poetry must reveal instincts, which many women are afraid of. But once they overcome it, they are so strong that not all men’s poetic talent can compare. Vietnam highly respects and creates the most favourable conditions for female poets.

I remember reading Ho Xuan Huong’s poem titled – Jackfruit – and I was struck by its sexual intimacy, independence and its sense of insurgence. Your selection for this issue seems to allow for this liberating voice. Was that intentional?

The poem “Jackfruit” you mentioned is among the “poems reported to belong to Ho Xuan Huong”, dating back to the reign of Le Trinh, 18th century. In 1913, someone collected this type of poetry and published it in Hai Phong. It was a very new breath of wind, blowing into the forced life of Vietnamese people and the Vietnamese psychology in the harsh prohibition of the feudal custom of wearing clothes and turbans. At that time, the composer still recorded it as a folk composition. Because it was bought a lot, it was printed several times a year, each time adding more, up to about 200 articles, all “sexually intimate” as you said. By 1950, Professor Le Tam completely abandoned the “folk characteristic” and recorded the real author as Ho Xuan Huong, with “Status and career of the Queen of Nom poetry”, which was taught in schools. So, the problem regarding the author has been decided. There are poems like “Swinging”, originally written by King Le Thanh Tong before 1497, rewritten in a “filled with sex” way, which were very famous. There was a poem “Mourning for Phu Vinh Tuong”, also very famous, the person who mourned (believed to be Ho Xuan Huong) cried out loudly that this “bag” of her – a woman’s private part – must be closed when he died, and that “balance” of his was lost when he died. That poem was very “uncultured and immoral”. While Ho Xuan Huong’s real work is Luu Huong ky, 1814, the poems in Chinese and Nom are very official, “gentlemanly and elegant”, very respectful of Confucian culture and ethics, as said at the beginning of the book. There, Ho Xuan Huong said, in the opening poem of her only collection of poems: “This is all the poetry of my life, up to now.” In it, there is ABSOLUTELY NOT a single poem, which has been included in about 200 traditional poems, considered to be hers, including the poem ”Jackfruit”, you mentioned. Remember, she is the wife of the Advisor to Defense Command Lieutenant Governor of An Quang town – present-day Quang Ninh province – she was often involved in her husband’s official duties, head of a large province – with a father who held the title of Prime Minister and a brother who was the Quyen Prime Minister. She once loved the great poet Nguyen Du, who also had his biological father and older brother as Prime Minister. She was a close friend of duke Tung – King Tung Thien of Mien Tham, grandson of King Gia Long, son of King Minh Mang, younger brother of King Thieu Tri of the Nguyen Dynasty. A woman from such a noble family, with a single collection of “gentlemanly and elegant” poems, in the 1800s, the Nguyen feudal regime was so harsh, how could she write such “filled with sex” poems. Researcher Tran Thanh Mai, who was very elaborate and erudite, confirmed in 1964: It is the poem of “us men”, composed and edited by the Calligraphy master of Nghe An, at the same time as the folk tales such as “Trang Quynh”, “Trang Lon”, and then the poems was claimed to be hers. All the details, images, sexual desires, sexual appeal of women, sex with women, and looking at women’s private parts, from top to bottom, in the poem which were believed to belong to Ho Xuan Huong, could only come from a group of men. It is impossible that those poems belong to a woman, especially a noble woman… But for more than 100 years now, tens of millions of people have memorised Ho Xuan Huong’s poetry and have become very familiar with such a version of Ho Xuan Huong recounted like that…

A well-known poem by the early 20th century poet Nguyen Binh is The Boat Girl. The word ‘xuan’ or spring appears seven times in the four-quatrain, seven syllable, sixteen-line poem. There is also heartbreak, a young woman, a fisherman or farmer, green bamboo and deep unfulfilled longing. I notice these characteristics in your work and in the work of the poets represented in this issue. Can you tell me, in the light of your own poetry, a little about this classical approach and the subject matter mentioned above.

Before you, there was a Vietnamese culture researcher who often related Nguyen Binh’s poetry to my poetry, that is Nguyen Van Quang, in terms of scenery and emotion. The image of the boatman and passengers crossing the river, in Nguyen Binh’s poem, that you mentioned above, creates a feeling of distance and sadness. I really remember the ending: “Abandoned the boat, abandoned the helm, abandoned the river / The boat girl got married / She was absent from that moment / Leaving sadness to the passengers who crossed the river.” I think this unique trait is not only close to me, but to many of us, because in a life full of turbulence, we always feel like we are latecomers, losers, always regretting something… And that, Nguyen Binh comes closer to the number 1 poet of your homeland, the Irish poet: Seamus Heaney, in the poem “Farewell”. But the boy from your hometown was more intense. When the girl left the riverbank, he stood on the bank, just wanting to rebel. Perhaps we Vietnamese, with our Eastern mentality, are often gentler? The distant silence when swallowing the sadness inside and the intense rebellion that requires expression, in the depths of emotions and poetry, it is difficult to tell which one haunts the reader more…. You’re right. My poetry is the same. All of my poetry, besides the excitement of my homeland growing day by day, is the awakening of memories, the distant sadness of memories, always wanting to find beauty that has faded away in time…

The poem Why the Days I’m Living in Are So Strange appears in this issue and it also appeared in the beautiful bilingual volume People and the World They’re Living in (2018), which you gifted to me when we met in Ha Long. In the poem, you are decrying the money-centered world we are living in and you mention the ‘choi dot’, the broom made from the dot tree. This is yet another example of a simple but powerful symbol found in your work and in the work of many Vietnamese poets. Can you talk about the use of symbolism in your poems?

Vietnam has gone through three consecutive wars, with all human and material resources put into it, to “All for victory”. Now entering the peace and construction era, the economy has become a priority, with money being the center. When the standard of living has improved, I realized that money is just a transition step to reach other values. In my opinion, anything that can be created with money, converted into money, bought, redeemed, or resolved with money is Minor. Only that which money cannot buy and cannot redeem is the Great. I think so and always warn myself and everyone, against the temptation of money, to the point of having to be involved and not be able to deal with it, so that my life is pure, I can only focus on creating Great values for the country, in Law, the Rights of Man and the Products of individual Talent, in the fields of mind and soul…, which money must surrender…

I have made versions in English of many of your poems and translated some of them into Irish (Gaelic) and Spanish. I think they read really well in those languages but sometimes I found the English I worked with to be haphazard, to say the least. Is there any way that the Vietnam Writers’ Association can help to improve the standard of translation or should we just learn Vietnamese?

Thank you very much for translating my poetry into English, Spanish, and especially Irish, your homeland, which is also the 20th homeland of my poetry abroad. I’m very happy when you say, the reader “reads those languages very well”, meaning your translation was successful. For many years now, the Vietnam Writers’ Association has had a Literary Translation Committee that has been operating very effectively, paying special attention to promoting Vietnamese literature abroad. Many Irish writers have translated into Vietnamese and are very familiar in Vietnam. I really admire J. Swift’s masterpiece Gulliver’s Chronicles (Travels), written in 1726, and republished in Vietnam many times. Everyone who reads it likes it. And G. Bernard Shaw, with his great plays, is very rich in political inspiration. No matter what topic or country he writes about, such as France in “Saint Joan”, viewers still recognize his passionate feelings about the people and country, his homeland, Ireland. Then “The House of Broken Heart” (Heartbreak House) and “The Apple Cart” are very famous… But there are too few Vietnamese poets and writers translated and published in Ireland, especially in Irish. It seems like I am the first Vietnamese poet…

Tell me about the Vietnam Writers’ Association. Many of the poets featured in this special issue belong to that association. Must poets and writers be members if they want to be published? How does it work.

No, my friend. Not only writers and poets, participating in associations, anyone who is a Vietnamese citizen can publish their work, if they want. Every year, publishers provide thousands of books of all kinds for readers. There is no need for “how”, because it always works and has worked well, at high speed. The only problem remains: “how” to produce good works, great works, and integrate with international friends…

On one of my visits to Ha Long I was told by my son Marcos about Poets’ Mountain, which I gazed on from his balcony. There are verses carved into the cliff’s face, which I couldn’t see, and in your poem here Will You Go Back To Ha Long you don’t mention this wonder. Should I go back to Ha Long, will you take me to see the carved verses? What do they mean?

I have 62 works, 35 volumes of poetry alone, poems about the wonders of Ha Long Bay, scattered in many other volumes, which you don’t have in hand. The mountain you mentioned is Poem Mountain, there is an immortal poem by the king – poet Le Thanh Tong, chosen to be placed at the source of Quang Ninh Poetry Day on March 29 every year, since 1988, the day the poem was carved on the cliff in 1468. This is the premise for 15 years later (2003) to have Vietnamese Poetry Day. On this mountain, there are 12 poems, a poetic monument built in the blue sky, next to the World Heritage site of Ha Long Bay, whose beautiful scenery is breathtaking to tourists. I have the poem you mentioned: “Do go back to Ha Long to see even the rocky mountains fall in love.” Please go there, it is so beautiful that even the most beautiful poems are powerless. Guo Moruo, a great Chinese poet, wrote: “In front of these branches, poetry is as good as nothing.” 

Finally, I think our readers will enjoy your opinions on American poets and poetry. And I’d like to hear what you have to say, if anything, about Irish poets and poetry. 

American poets are very familiar to us, including the poet Walt Whitman with his rare modern, muscular verses and the black poet Langston Hughes with his heartbreakingly sad blues. Irish poets, too, to name just two, previously the poet S. Heaney, whom I mentioned above, and most recently, you, dear poet John Liddy, with 6 excellent chapters (excerpts) extracted from the epic poem “Arias of Consolation”, published in the Writers & Life magazine of the Vietnam Writers Association, in which, very touchingly, you wrote about President Ho Chi Minh, when he was still a kitchen assistant in a London hotel, and you brought that to your beloved homeland, Ireland…

(Answers translated into English by Vu Linh Chi – Adelaide, South Australia)