There's magic in translating a body of work from one language to another.
By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm The human mind is an extraordinary thing, it transcends the imagination. It stores our anguish and infinite desire, but will you allow it to be more? I’m pondering the poem Boo wrote a couple of years back. Boo and I have a couple of things in common, we are loyal […]
the memories
a boundless cemetery
recall a bottomless pit
i have thrown in it entirely a treasure-trove of moments
the old crumbling eras
to be discarded
but instead i’ve chucked them in my head
and i am living
inside this cemetery
uống hết tháng uống hết ngày niềm vui cùng nỗi buồn này cứ tan uống giọt lệ lẫn tiếng cười uống cái không uống chút lười tháng năm mùa đông rơi xuống căn phòng rơi trên giấc ngủ chưa xong một đời . by Đinh Trường Chinh, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm drinking the day […]
you’re hidden from me
beyond the West
You shall walk alone in the dark
Tripping on your own thoughts
To after rise
Beneath the Sunlight
You will set free the truth
Allowing the vines of others to latch onto
The souls you’ll find
Residing in the Clouds and the Leaves
The loneliness is brutal
Dusk failed to interpret the rain
I awoke amid soil odour
With the fifth coffee
Shine on the wood .
sớm mai, tôi.acrylic.on.canvas.đtc
you write
in the creation of a world on fire
hence the further hardship in poetry
more glory in the palm of your hand
the words swell upon your command
you write encryption on the rocks
often rather complicated
the vows
of a nation
you polished
the written words
with your agonizing sweat
write with all that is within your grasp
so much so the hairs on your skin would curl up
along with the thoughts in your head
write
the impossible
drill a hole through this
Godforsaken life…
Congratulations to you sir, you’re yet forty-six, your mother gave birth to you standing up, her legs wide open. You poor thing, did you bump your head on the way out? You read books, you know how to spell, you know how to compose poetry?
Nỗi đau tột cùng
ong đốt,
làm em khóc
đau đớn một lần
ôi tiếng cười của anh
như bình minh
“One need be afraid of no one. If you fear somebody then it is due to the fact that he has power over you”
Cain- Hermann Hesse
By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm Right or wrong Short or long Dark or light You write You can’t deny I have but a dream Last night A cloud of bats in flight Upside down side up right Dropped The viruses As black as the ink Inside the insides of a […]
We will never grow old in sight of our mother. The tears of sadness and joy lingers as salt pools in the corner of her eyes in the days of tomorrow.
By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm Bạn có thương một thứ gì đã vỡ bao giờ chưa? Chưa? Vậy thì, bạn nghĩ bạn có quyền nhận một thứ ân cần gì ở tôi? Tôi khác gì bạn? Bạn sống đến bao lâu? Bạn bao nhiêu tuổi? Giá bao nhiêu? Vậy thôi à? Mấy giờ? Không quá […]
and these dense grey locks of mine
rested upon this chest
whereupon this desolate land
did I began to cry
the haemoglobin on a stampede
pressing the phone for time
the car horns anxious
rushed the boarding
imprisoned eyes through the glass pane
the clumsy messages in one’s hands
in splits standing up on the groans of April thirtieth
the North and South are not fields of green grass
the boundary of history was already set: the Gianh river, the latitude
at the heart of a war
the pot of pork porridge
void of a glowing fire
lacking the flavour of u Cơ, looked abandoned
at a world
flea market
I have my share of wreckage
the so-called
proletarian revolution.
My mother no longer knits
her fingers bleeds still
her fingers pressing on the strings of the instrument
the notes fell in the two syllables of hero.
dare me, be so bold
what, you asked, how old?
fuck that, I’m already sold!
a quotidian slave
I live still in a cave
I’m typical
stock files
standard issue
everyday Jane
no more no less sane
The lady is fully aware, the gentleman is very liberal in bed at the moment with a dog.
…
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