The Griffin Prize

            Chào Mặt Trời Xứ Của Tôi

Note: Bài thơ này, đã post trên tanvien.net và FB, nhưng nhờ FB nhắc, và độc giả “like”, bèn coi lại, thấy đầy lỗi, và không đầy đủ. Nay post lại toàn bài, cả hai phần tiếng Anh, và tiếng Pháp, và sẽ có thêm phần tiếng Việt. 

Đây là 1 bài thơ dài, được làm ở trong nhà tù. Gấu nhớ là, đọc 1 phát, mê quá, và quá mê nữa, âm hưởng của bài thơ làm nhớ tới thơ của ông anh TTT, bài Những cuộc tình duyên Budapest, những bài thơ trong tù làm thành Bi Khúc “Thơ Ở Đâu Xa”, thí dụ dòng thơ sau đây:

Tôi có cả hàng ngàn lý do để sống

Chiến thắng cái chết thường nhật

Hạnh phúc được yêu em

Đi bằng những gót chân của hy vọng 

Cái tít bài thơ mới thần sầu làm sao: Chào Mặt Trời Của Xứ Sở Mít Của Gấu

Cái này thì phải cám ơn FB!

NQT

Bài thơ là 1 trong số những bài lọt vô danh sách chót của giải thơ lớn Griffin mà Tin Văn đã từng giới thiệu. Trong số những người được giải này có Paul Celan, Charles Simic, toàn thứ cực kỳ dữ dằn. Và trong số những người lọt vào danh sách chót 2017, có nữ thi sĩ Hoa Nguyên, Canada, gốc Mít [giải này là của Canada, thế mới bảnh!

Vị Hoa Nguyễn này rất nổi tiếng, nhưng Gấu không đọc được thơ của HN. Post sau đây, 1 bài thơ của Hoa Nguyễn và lời giới thiệu của ban giám khảo.

Cuối năm, giới thiệu thêm tạp chí Thơ, số tháng Chạp 2018, trong có thơ của Nam Lê [tác giả The Boat], và Hieu Minh Nguyen, cũng rất nổi tiếng, và Gấu cũng không đọc được.

           

Bonjour soleil de mon pays

Bonjour soleil de mon pays

qu'il fait bon vivre aujourd'hui

que de lumière

que de lumière autour de moi

Bonjour terrain vague de ma promenade

tu m'es devenu familier

je t'arpente vivement

et tu me vas comme un soulier élégant

Bonjour pique-boeuf balourd et philosophe

perche là-haut

sur cette muraille qui me cache Ie monde

te chatouillant les côtes

à petits coups distraits

Bonjour herbe chétive de l'allee

frissonnant en petites rides opalescentes

sous la caresse taquine du vent

Bonjour grand palmier solitaire

plante sur ton echasse grenue

et t'ouvrant comme une splendide tulipe

ala cime

Bonjour soleil de mon pays

marée de présence annihilant l'exil

Que de lumière

que de lumière autour de moi

***

J'ai mille raisons de vivre

vaincre la mort quotidienne

le bonheur de t'aimer

marcher au pas de l'espoir 

***

Good Morning Sun of My Land

Good morning sun of my land

how good it feels to be alive today

so much light

so much light around me

Good morning empty exercise yard

you have become familiar to me

I cross you with a lively step

and you suit me like an elegant shoe

Good morning ponderous and philosophical oxpecker

perched up there

on the wall that hides the world from me

poking at your ribcage

with distracted little movements

Good morning sparse grass in the alley

quivering in opalescent flurries

at the wind's teasing touch

Good morning great lone palm

erect on your cross-grained trunk

blooming at your peak

like a glorious tulip

Good morning sun of my land

tide of presence abolishing exile

So much light

so much light around me

* * *

I have a thousand reasons to live

to vanquish day-to-day death

the joy of loving you

and walking in step with hope 

***

           

Tant d'années

a n'avoir jamais connu

la solitude ou l'ennui

tant d' etoiles filantes dans ma tête

La vasque de tendresse murmure

en plein chant

l' étrange bonheur du prisonnier

***

La nuit a laché sa horde de colombes

sur les forêts sensuelles du souvenir

Tu m'apparais

terrifiante de grâces et de promesses

puis c'est le rite

entrecoupé de détonations

de voyeurs hilares puant la cagoule

Je ne suis qu'à moitie homme 

* * *

L'eau coule dans ma main

Des gouttelettes irisées

absorbent gouhlment Ie soleil

Rêver n'est que le reflet

de ce presque miracle 

***

Le sourire éclot de lui-même

Je ne l'arrache pas à ma face

oubliée avec tous les miroirs

Sourire inextinguible

c'est com me ca que je résiste

So many years

without ever knowing

solitude or boredom

so many shooting stars in my head

The reservoir of tenderness hums

in plainsong chant

the prisoner's peculiar happiness

* * *

Night has released its host of doves

into the sensual forests of memory

You appear to me

terrifying with grace and promise

then comes the ritual

punctuated by explosions

from elated voyeurs stinking of the cagoule

I am half a man only 

***

Water runs onto my hand

Iridescent drops

greedily gobble up the sunshine

Dreaming is merely a reflection

of this near-miracle 

***

The smile breaks out by itself

I do not wipe it from a face

forgotten along with all mirrors

An inextinguishable smile

my way of resisting

***

Les camarades dorment

La prison a cesse de tournoyer clans leur tete

Ils naviguent a cceur ouvert

en haute mer de nos passions inedites

Ils sont beaux dans leur sommeil 

*** 

C'est encore loin le temps des cerises

et des mains chargées d'offrandes immédiates

le ciel ouvert au matin frais des libertés

la joie de dire

et la tristesse heureuse

C'est encore loin le temps des cerises

et des cites emerveillées de silence

a l'aurore fragile de nos amours

la fringale des rencontres

les rêves fous devenus tâches quotidiennes

C'est encore loin le temps des cerises

mais je le sens deja

qui palpite et leve

tout chaud en germe

dans ma passion du futur

Maison centrale de Kenitra, I978

*** 

The comrades are asleep

The prison no longer twists and turns their minds

They are sailing with open hearts

on the high seas of our extraordinary passions

They are beautiful as they sleep 

*** 

The temps des cerises is still far off

along with hands bearing gifts freely offered

a sky open to the new morning of freedoms

the joy of speech

and happy sadness

The cherry season is still far off

with its cities enchanted by silence

the fragile dawn of our loves

the hunger for encounter

the mad dreams become workaday tasks

The cherry season is still far off

but I feel it already

palpitating and quickening

a warm growing embryo

in my passion for the future 

Kenitra Prison, I978  

HOA NGUYEN

Violet Energy Ingots

Hoa Nguyen's poems tread delicately but firmly between the linear demands of narrative and syntax on the one hand and between registers of speech and forms of address on the other. There are spaces for breath, and asides hovering in parentheses. There are also the slippages in language, in the slide from, say, "staring" through "starving" and "starring" to "scarring." Everything is at once tangential yet surprisingly direct. This is where the pleasure and depth reside: in the off balancing of the language and its pure, uncalculated tone. What are the poems about? Many things, often simple and direct, like food, or sex, or rivers, or sickness. The poems are packed with fine precisions and particulars. But there is politics, too, sometimes startlingly straight, as in the poem about Andrew Jackson, or sharp-edged, as in "Screaming." Violet Energy Ingots is a fully mature work in that it is confident of both its voice and its readers' alertness. It makes its own space. It demands it and holds it.

Haunted Sonnet 

Haunt lonely and find when you lose your shadow

secretive house centipede on the old window

You pronounce Erinyes as "Air-n-ease"

Alecto: the angry Megaera: the grudging

Tisiphone: the avenger (voice of revenge)

"Women guardians of the natural order"

Think of the morning dream with ghosts

Why draw the widow's card and wear the gorgeous

            Queen of Swords crown         Your job is

to rescue the not-dead woman before she enters

            the incinerating garbage chute            wrangle silver

            raccoon power             Forever a fought doll

She said, "What do you know about Vietnam?"

            Violet energy ingots    Tenuous knowing moment 

 January 

January long light

Janus    I see you

God oflocks and doorways

two-faced looking in Capricorn

Capricious like the snowy owl

irruption

We fear heavy body collisions

January   time of doors

time looking back on itself

God of gates

spelt and salt

They say when you

walk through a door

you can forget what

            you came for

HIEU MINH NGUYEN 

Uptown, Minneapolis, Minnesota 

Even though it's May & the ice cream truck

parked outside my apartment is somehow certain,

I have a hard time believing winter is somehow,

all of a sudden, over - the worst one of my life,

the woman at the bank tells me. Though I'd like to be,

it's impossible to be prepared for everything.

Even the mundane hum of my phone catches me

off guard today. Every voice that says my name

is a voice I don't think I could possibly leave

(it's unfair to not ask for the things you need)

even though I think about it often, even though

leaving is a train headed somewhere I'd probably hate.

Crossing Lyndale to meet a friend for coffee

I have to maneuver around a hearse that pulled too far

into the crosswalk. It's empty. Perhaps spring is here.

Perhaps it will all be worth it. Even though I knew

even then it was worth it, staying, I mean.

Even now, there is someone, somehow, waiting for me.