Swine, pigs & Poetry | Bùi Chát

1.

Swine and Pigs are 2 completely different kinds of animals, Swine are swine and Pigs are Pigs, Pigs are Northern creatures and Swine are Southern animals. The fate of Swine and Pigs are nothing alike. Pigs will be skinned alive, their lard used to bake cake, Swine follow the arts they make porn. Between Pigs and Swine there is not just a divide in geography, but a huge gap between rich and poor, nobility and commoners, blue blood and farmers.

Swine as an identity have been around for how long no one knows, but it has to be at least before the war. A war that was dragged on and on at the detriment of both Swine and Pigs. Pigs fought in the name of their breed, Swine chased after their freedom to live. Pigs wanted a collective, unification on all fronts, they started the war for a simple reason: on this earth there can only be Pigs. Swine, with the help of those with like minds fought back with everything they got, refused to give in, so they can keep their identity, they want to be called Swine.

Finally the war ended, wins and advantages belonged to the Pigs, even though after half a century, after all the trial and imposition, Swine are not Pigs, and Pigs are no longer Pigs either, neither side cared about reunification or harmony.

But at a glance there still, rows after rows and line after line, there are pigs pen full of Swine and Pigs.

2.

Dương Tường – a poet and translator is adept in how to live with Pigs, said: The first person who called a Thrush a Thrush before it had a name was indeed a poet. I don’t know! I don’t know for sure if the person who named a Dragonfly Dragonfly, Grasshopper a Grasshopper, Mallard a Mallard was a poet or not.

It should be obvious that – I was born and raised in the land of Swine – as a poet but not once did I managed to name any thing/creature. I have composed hundreds of poems amongst them some have been published. I am a poet not because of the hundred of poems, my problem is that I believed I was a poet before I composed those poems, or it is very possible that I was able to compose those poems because I believed that I was and still am a poet. Sometimes I would wonder if I’m still a poet, and I have called myself a veteran of not war but poetry especially in the past ten years, a period of time when I have not touch or be near anything to do with poetry, reading or writing, both.

Even if I am not a poet, I can still discern cat call via the cries of Pigs-Swine what one would defined as Feline since it did cry “meow meow”, the Elephant’s trumpet in the oink oink of Pigs-Swine that is called an Elephant sound because of it long nose, and much like a crow because it is a crow, the way say a Cow is called a Cow since it would often squawk “caw caw”, “moo, moooo”…

and of course it is rudimentary that one can not apply this rule to just anything, for instance if one were to apply this rule when it comes to a Dog then it would bark “wow wow”, “ruff ruff”, “woof woof”, or one might call a Dog a Woof of a Wolf…

Derived from arguments between two regions of Pigs-Swine despite whether speech was formed or not, anyone can be a poet if this is what they want. With the desire to change the vernacular.

3.

Poetry was not an art that came first, even more so that it was not an art that had first began here. Even so, this land’s desire to change the vernacular is rather commendable.

I do not know the exactly statistic, but personally I believe that after a quarter of a century that the Pigs have been in charge there has been a 25 to 30% decline in the vernacular of Swine. Admittedly significant was the Swine’s efforts in trying protect and preserve their heritage, when they were displaced, when they were forced to leave, the most valuable asset they took with them was their vernacular. Roaming all over the world, proudly speaking their language amongst other communities, print newspapers, write and publish literature, and in whatever they might be doing they applied their vernacular. The conservation effort of the Swine populace may have succeeded if it weren’t for the effort to destroy, in other words, without the House of Pigs’ effort to change the language.

But in truth whether the house of Pigs were deliberate in trying to change the vernacular the vernacular itself was already changing, the way it would say within the politics of imperial courts it had its own evolution, and everyone can become a poet in their way.

If we truly believe the legendary tale of the Tower of Babel then what should be on our mind? The Tower of Babel does not only represent the birth of language, but also the metaphor specifically for the formation of each language. The Tower of Babel can not reside any where else but within each language, is the history of each language not the history of The Tower of Babel?!!

I like the idea of a poem being like The Tower of Babel, and it being intrinsically the will of the vernacular more so than the will of the poet. The poet clearly plays the role of the creator, he wants his creation, his poem to remain flawed, hence the words, terminologies, images in the poem finds it impossible to truly communicate, form a bond strong enough to be called friends, connect to then break, fall apart… so the poem may remain forever incomplete, forever a failure.

Reading and writing within our vernacular means reading and writing within a state of utter nonsense, utter chaos, where the conciousness is left in a state of turmoil of undefined ideas, creating and destroying simultaneously, war and peace, just as old as it is new, at the same time beg and borrow mend regenerate, born again.

In each writing endeavour, I find myself endeavouring to build another tower of Babel, while reading is an endeavour to destroy it.

Even though the subject of art was not born first, the undeniable possibility is that when art is bound by the vernacular it becomes an art that is most sustainable, and possibly the last subject of art that will survive in the end.

The business of poetry begins with the vernacular, its survival is parralel with the vernacular, it’s not easy to replace poetry with anything else but the vernacular.