Wake up | Bùi Kim-Anh

Starfruit flowers in my mother's garden. Photography: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A poem in Vietnamese by Bùi Kim-Anh
Translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

O flower buds
awake through the night
the morning is cold
wake up so the flowers can bloom
O the verse awake through the night
still roaming this morning
refuse to come home
wake up now, because soon
the streets will be full of people
come noon

DẬY ĐI

Những chiếc nụ thức từ đêm qua
sáng nay lạnh
dậy đi cho hoa nở
Câu thơ thức từ đêm qua
đi hoang
sáng nay không về nữa
dậy đi phố lại sắp đông người

Bùi Kim Anh, the poet born in 1948 in Thái Bình, graduated from Hanoi Teacher College, a teacher at a few high schools in Hanoi(Cổ Loa, Bạch Mai, Trần Phú). She is a member of the Vietnam Writers Association. Bùi Kim Anh together with her journalist husband Trần Mai Hạnh currently lives in Nguyễn Đình Chiểu, Hanoi with their eldest daughter and grandchildren, including Thiện Nhân, from Mount Thành, Quảng Nam, abandoned by his mother and adopted by Trần Mai Anh, the poet’s daughter.

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.

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By Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

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

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