the scent of you

A poem in Vietnamese by Lê Vĩnh Tài
Translators: Đoàn Duy & Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Photography: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Let me paint a chamber sweet with your scent
If walls in utterance do express

*
Let them tell of my delight
Of how I clasped your breath so tight.

[Đoàn Duy]
March 2023

Let me draw a room to hold the scent of you
If the walls could talk
*
Let them talk
Of how I would hold tightly the billow of your breath…
[Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
]
+++

Hãy để tôi vẽ căn phòng với mùi hương của bạn
Nếu những bức tường có thể nói chuyện
*
Hãy để chúng nói
Rằng tôi đã giữ chặt hơi thở của bạn như thế nào…

April 2019

 


Đoàn Duy, the translator is from Saigon, Vietnam.

Lê Vĩnh Tài, the poet and translator born in 1966 in Buon Ma Thuot, Daklak, Vietnam. The retired doctor is still a resident of the Western Highlands and a businessman in Buon Ma Thuot.

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

There's magic in translating a body of work from one language to another.

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