Autumn
So, I have lost you.
My poetry cannot contain the high blue sky.
The fast and full river is suddenly still,
time suddenly pale.
By a cool autumn wind my heart is wrung.
A yellow daisy calls at the foot of clouds until it’s hoarse.
I arrive at a strange place,
the place where there is someone, not you.
Great Wall
I come again to the Great Wall.
Streams of sunset divide the fire of Feng Tai.
My heart divides rivers and mountains,
but brave man, who will ever know?
Pearl River Night
Luxurious Pearl River, luxurious night
like ivory, like pearls, like you.
Later, I come to the River Day to row;
I pull down some sweet smelling fruit and the moon suddenly rises.
Untitled
The sky wakes from hibernation,
sun light shy on the bamboo hedge.
Someone, just let go from harvesting,
waits anxiously for spring.
Ask
Busy traffic, yet the man still sleeps.
A thin blanket hermetically covers his head,
poverty and misery since before time.
Oh simple worker, where is your native land.
Tran Nhuong is a celebrated poet, novelist, and short story writer in Viet Nam. His awards include the Poetry Prize from the Arts & Literature Journal for his poem “Letter to My Children,” an award from the Army Arts and Literature Journal for his story “Yesterday, Today, and That Road,” a Literary Award from the Defense Department for the poetry collection Soldier’s Love Poems, and an award from the National Union of Arts and Literature Association for his novel The River Without Shores. His most recent collection of poetry is The March Wind Still Blows, published in 2002.
Nguyen Ba Chung is an accomplished poet in English and in Vietnamese and is one of the most important translators of contemporary Vietnamese poetry. He is a Fellow at the William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Bruce Weigl is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry, several translations, and the best-selling memoir The Circle of Hanh. After serving in the Vietnam War, where he earned a Bronze Star, Weigel returned to the United States and was educated at Oberlin College. He received his MFA in writing and American and British literature from the University of New Hampshire and his PhD from the University of Utah. He currently lives in Oberlin, Ohio.
