The Turmeric Poets (Part III)

About five or six months ago, I sought a book suggestion from my father. He handed me a Vietnamese edition of Pearl S. Buck’s Trang, which had a distinctive red cover. The original English title of this book is Peony. Not having delved into it in either language before, I’m uncertain about the reason for his recommendation. Can roots make their unknown appearance in the literary tastes of one’s father? How does influence manifest itself?

I grew up in both Long Khánh and Iowa City, and my father would often jest with light-hearted sexual innuendos, frequently targeting ovoid green defenseless things such as fruits. From time to time, he’d weave his sexual jocularity into conversations about tea and coffee—beverages he didn’t even consume—suggesting, for example, that if we hadn’t washed a load of bras yet, coffee filters could make an excellent substitute. Given this, my reimagining of Hương’s jackfruit poem, “Quả mít,” appearing on page 40 of my poetry collection War Is Not Mother, which spins her carnal carpology and undertones into something salaciously sartorial, should come as no surprise. 

Although I’ve reimagined Hương’s risqué jackfruit poem for quê hương (birthsoil) amusement and drew on the cheeky mirth of Hồ Xuân Hương’s audacious literary style, which outshone that of the men of her era, I can't help but also think of her literary brother and successor, the love poet Hàn Mặc Tử (1912-1940).

From my mother, over pointy needles and sewing threads, I grew up with Hàn’s famous “Đây Thôn Vĩ Dạ,” oxidized, etched, calcined, smothered into my quotidian consciousness. I was born four years after the Fall of Saigon. This ageless pastoral poem is one I've revisited at least a hundred times. It evokes memories of the âu yếm things before the war. Juxtaposed next to the arcadian lyrics—the pre-historic downfall of the war, the ideological collapse, the war(heads)'s devastating end, and the rain of debris and grenades, all seemed like an octopus without tentacles. I turn to this poem whenever I yearn for my birthsoil, the rubber trees and coffee beans of Long Khánh, and my youthful days spent playing hide and seek with the moon under my mother's fabric table. I turn to it whenever I want to write something êm dịuly (softly) yellow and oai phongly (majestically) tender. My former lover once spent days wandering the non-existent Vietnamese district in Kansas City, persistently inquiring of nail salon owners and pho restaurant goers, seeking, with great madness, someone who could translate the poem into English for her. She wanted to profoundly grasp the wellspring of my admiration and longing. Or perhaps she believed she could use language to erase the abusive souvenirs she had left on my body. 

For myself, I have yet to find an interpretation that speaks of a potent tender rawness of the bucolic, aurous, inviting texture of “Đây Thôn Vĩ Dạ.” The poem holds the lunular strand of my existence on the prismatic brink of sedated, gilded mahogany, that deliquesced beige, dust-like state between disintegrated mortal recoil of a verdant, ephemeral, cognitive afternoon and my muted, ratiocinative love for a distant Vietnam. Despite encountering what many would consider a noteworthy translation by N.T. Anh in Modern Poetry Translation, the translation struck me as incomplete, somehow lacking or overly sanitized. Motivated by this sense of dissatisfaction, a form of constructive discontent, I embarked on the daunting task of crafting my own translation, drawing on the most authentic vernacular of my lexical lineage.

In the act of translating the text, my aim was not to westernize it, but rather to capture its intrinsic 'nghệness' or its 'yellow spice,' endeavoring to extract not just superficial hints but the tunic of turmeric. Unlike the culinary process of taste-testing a dish to ensure the right balance of salt, pepper, paprika, and turmeric, translation is more about the nuanced garment of soul and soil. It involves posing the correct questions for appraisal. I consistently interrogate myself: does this poetic re-concoction contain an adequate infusion of yellow? Does it bear (bà gánh) the right measure of 'nghệ' or 'duende'? Does it appropriately shoulder the precise weight of (xứ) nghệ?

In my youth and during my formative years, my focus on erotic writing seemed to draw me closer to my sister, Hương, while inadvertently and somewhat reluctantly sidelining my relationship with my brother, Hàn. Through the journey of this translation endeavor, I've come to understand that my creative efforts often invite me, from the very first adapted stanza, to deepen my connection with my other sibling, Hàn. "Why don't you visit georgic Vĩ?" my work frequently implores. It begs, “Why don’t you return back to your past, Vi?”—to that rubescent birthsoil that coated the inmost layer of my literary style and work.