Dọc con phố này

A poem by Octavio Paz
A translation into Vietnamese by Lê Vĩnh Tài
Photography: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Dọc con phố này

Here

bước dọc con phố này
tiếng vang của tôi
em nghe ở một con phố khác

tôi nghe bước chân tôi
hư vô ngang qua phố
chỉ sương mù là có thật

My steps along this street
Resound
In another street
In which
I hear my steps
Passing along this street
In which
Only the mist is real


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.

Octavio Paz [1914-1988] was a Mexican poet and diplomat. For his body of work, he was awarded the 1977 Jerusalem Prize, the 1981 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, and the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature.

By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

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

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