By Nguyễn Văn Thiện, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

By Nguyễn Văn Thiện, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Because he knows you like to fly.
The Sun atop silent
Burning fretful
The coming days
How could I possibly fathom the waiting? My mother waiting for my father to come home. This was a letter father send to mother from re-educational camp, my very first translation, lyrics by Trịnh Công Sơn
The mountains and valleys were scraped bare like a curse in folklore, my friend is still by my side, but her face is gone, only a pair of eyes remain like glowing lumps of coal in winter…
by Thái Hạo, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm In the summer rain I’m under a hut devoid of walls Trying to sleep In a continuance of a dream last night, a corn seed germinating Corn kernels like front teeth Breaking through the soil piercing sunlight dancing in the […]
by Đình Nguyên, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Tea
Nor spirit
by Đình Nguyên, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
you replace the horizon
with a scatter of hope
a flare
sunlight
By Nguyễn Văn Thiện, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm You’re cracking, I’m also cracking open, slowly every day, every hour, did you know that? A million-dollar highway just completed, about a metre thick, full of gravel and cement, but cracking already after one night. Let alone you and me, the making of flesh and […]
A star fell into the bamboo bushes
mixing with fireflies in the dense darkness
by Sấu Mã, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
by Sấu Mã, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
by Sấu Mã, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
by Sấu Mã, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
by Sấu Mã, translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
by Sấu Mã, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
The clouds shredded
We’re a crumbling net beneath the sky
Engulfing all that’s austere
By Lê Vĩnh Tài, translated by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm days months yet in slumber back to what yet is left the climb small climb yet long came home yet in yearning yet burns a smoke first light smoke thus yet this white plume quiet yet like floating clouds I sat thus yet […]
HUE – IN THE DIARY SO NOTED
in the thoughtlessness of the day
I remembered
my face
like forever I’ve seen it last