My BA degree was in Russian language and literature. As an undergraduate student, I read thousands of pages of Russian novels (in English translation), and I loved every minute of that (well, except for the last 30 extremely-dense pages of War and Peace when Tolstoy presents his philosophy of life and you just want the damn novel to end because you’ve already read over 1,000 pages!!).
In our current digital age, I can’t see how that is possible any more. No one is going to read the 1000+ pages of War and Peace on a computer or a cell phone, and printed books are increasingly alien to people.
So what does that mean for literature? Personally, I think some of the greatest writing of all times can now be found on Netflix. Some of the writers of series on Netflix can clearly rival the Tolstoys and Dosteoevsky’s of the past. So I don’t worry for literature.
But what about poetry?. . . For a while Rap/Hip Hop music and poetry slams were providing a venue for good poetry to be expressed, but I see less of that these days.
With all of that in mind, my poet/academic wife (Phan Le Ha) and I have been working together to try to find a way to make her Vietnamese poetry find a contemporary expression. The form we are exploring at the moment is a combination of music video, cinematic sound design, and spoken voice.
I’m posting our work on the webpage: https://phanlehapoetry.com/
However, here is our most recent piece, and the one that I’m the most satisified with to date. The Vietnamese version is at the top. You can scroll down for the English version.
Ta và Biển
Me and the Sea
Ta và Biển
(Phan Lê Hà, Tutong, Brunei, 2019)
Ta lướt nỗi đau dài trên ngọn sóng
Để bọt rì rào hát khúc tình ca
Ta giấu nỗi đau gồ ghề vào bãi đá
Đợi thủy triều chầm chậm rút ra xa
Ta neo nỗi đau trầm trong tim chàng thủy thủ
Để câu thơ vương vấn đậu mỏ neo. . .
Cheo leo
Trên những cánh buồm căng
Ta gài nỗi đau không nói
Để gió lộng thổi tan ngoài khơi
Ta ghim nỗi đau có gai lên nền chiều chạng vạng
Nhởn nhơ cùng mây lãng đãng lưng trời. . .
Rặng phi lao xao xác lả lơi
Gió nhẹ ôm ấp đôi gò má
Sóng đánh ỡm ờ, bọt sủi tăm xa
Ta lắc nỗi đau đắng trong trái dừa tươi ngọt lịm. . .
Ta gửi lại nỗi đau mềm trên cát mịn
Theo dã tràng đắm đuối vẽ tranh
Ta nhấn nỗi đau gồ ghề lên hàng dương mong manh
Cho chàng gió đêm nay thêm bầu bạn
Ta buông nỗi đau ngột ngạt vào lòng biển
Để mênh mông đại dương xoa dịu
Ta cán mỏng nỗi đau dày bằng những chiếc vỏ ốc
Sợi từng sợi trôi theo rong rêu
Chiều buông dồn
Ta viết tâm tư trên thân gỗ mục
Kẻ phong trần và thi sĩ gặp nhau
Nỗi đau gieo vần cất cánh
Nở nụ cười đón ánh trăng thanh. . .
Kẻ phong trần và thi sĩ gặp nhau
Nỗi đau gieo vần cất cánh
Me and the Sea
(Phan Lê Hà, Tutong, Brunei, 2019)
I surf my long pain over the waves
For the rustling bubbles to sing a ballad.
I hide my rough pain in the seabreak stones,
To wait for the tide to slowly submerge and carry it far off.
I cast my deep pain into the heart of a sailor,
For lines of poetry to come to rest upon the anchor. . .
Perched up high,
On those taut sails,
I fasten my unspoken pain,
For the rising wind to disperse it over the open sea.
I pin my thorny pain on the late-afternoon sunset,
For it to drift carefree with the clouds above the horizon. . .
A row of sea pines whispers flirtatiously,
And a light breeze hugs my cheekbones.
Waves strike playingly, sending bubbles and foam afar.
I shake my bitter pain into a luciously sweet coconut. . .
I entrust my soft pain onto the smooth sand,
To follow the beach crabs in their passionate drawing.
I press my rough pain into a row of fragile sea spruce trees,
For the wind to find a friend tonight.
I release my suffocating pain into the belly of the sea,
For the vast ocean to soothe it.
I knead thin my thick pain with seashells,
String after string flowing away with the algae.
As dusk suddenly falls,
I write my inner thoughts on a piece of driftwood.
When the wanderers and poets meet,
The pain will take flight in rhyme,
And smiles will welcome the light of the clear moon. . .
When the wanderers and poets meet
The pain will take flight in rhyme
This Post Has 2 Comments
(Originally attempted comment 2 June 2020)
A beautiful poem. Well done (to both of you)!!!
‘War & Peace’ is one of only a tiny handful of books that I read in part but never finished. I got about two thirds into it, but simply couldn’t face all those pages I still had left to read. Granted, I was only 12 years old at the time, but I’ve always felt bad about that (not bad enough to go back to it, though!). I feel so much better now- thanx, professor!
By the way, if you can find a copy there is a book called ‘Seasons of Sacred Lust’ (1978) by Kazuko Shiraishi (a Japanese “Beat” poet who seems to be having a bit of a career renaissance recently, judging from what I see online). It has been a while since I read it, but I seem to remember there was an interview section (or possibly an essay) in the book where she discussed the inherent difficulty of translating poetry. Aside from that, of course, she is a talented poet (stylistically somewhere on the boundary between e.e. cummings & Leonard Cohen) and well worth reading anyway…
I appreciate your poetry. Thank you! I disagree with your acceptance of the decline of literature and the incongruous comparison to Netflix; which for the most part is mass-produced rubbish. I still read books. I print PDFs. I read from an iPad, my laptop, my phone. However, nothing beats holding a weighty book in your hands. No charging. No distraction. An interconnection of your thoughts, ideas and experiences with those of the author. Books and film are not the same and one cannot replace the other. Netflix is not literature.