Tag: philosophy

Chiếc lá | Vũ Hoàng Thư

a leaf from an ancient tree is the perfect disposition be Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A poem in Vietnamese by Vũ Hoàng Thư
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

all I want is to be a leaf from an ancient tree
so I may one day
in a wet or cold spell
with the wind I will fly and well
take in all the four corners, the smells
I will glide through swells
as light as air
curled up in a cloud like a ringlet of your hair
a summer day fair
by the fall I will be blindly
in love with the autumn colours
poets busier by the hour
I will be an anthem of autumn leaves
every fall
and just like that I shall return to the origin
on the last breath of autumn
sombre notes
and in truth
the moment I began to live is
the moment I am carried away
by the wind

Chiếc lá

tôi chỉ muốn
là một chiếc lá đơn từ nhành cổ thụ (*)
để một hôm
cơn nồm hay trận bấc
vờn tôi bay theo gió
hít thở bốn phương
rồi tôi sẽ nhẹ như bấc
víu lấy mây cuốn lọn tròn như tóc em
một ngày nắng hạ
tôi sẽ mù u khi trời trở thu
rực vàng sang màu hoàng hổ
bọn thi sĩ trầm trồ
tôi thành bài ca bất hủ autumn leaves
trong từng mùa lá rụng
như thế tôi rời cành bay về cội
khi mùa thu thở hắt
những nốt trầm buồn
nhưng thật ra
tôi bắt đầu sống
khi trận gió cuốn lên không.


Vũ Hoàng Thư
2/18/2025
——————————
(*) Ý Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Vũ Hoàng Thư, born Võ Anh Tuấn 1949 in Hue, Vietnam. The poet and translator, head editor of bienkhoi.com currently lives in Fountain Valley, California.

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.

kitsch | Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm Photo credit: Huong Theresa Thanh Hoang . Thank you chị xx

Tired cranky vividly antisocial
Be I fall into the dark of shadows
Ego for company

I force my way through the month’s rain
Into the beautician’s chair
Made I “The Picture of Dorian Gray”

The kindness
Through a stranger’s lens
My spirit restored.

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.

Missing you mate | Hồ Chí Minh

Cô Trâm và bạn Nghĩa

thơ Hồ Chí Minh
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm dịch

By the river we said our goodbyes
See you when the harvest is ripe
Now the rice is harvest the land cleared
I’m incarcerated in a foreign land now that’s something to fear!

Ức hữu


Tích quân tống ngã chí giang tân
Vấn ngã quy kỳ chỉ cốc tân
Hiện tại tân điền dĩ lê hảo
Tha hương ngã tác ngục trung thân

Hồ Chí Minh [1890-1969] Bác Hồ, Uncle Ho, the poet was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969, and as its first prime minister from 1945 to 1955.

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.

A conversation with a poet about poetry | Bùi Chát

Khai mạc 'Đang trôi'. Photo by Trà Cù Lủ

poem by Bùi Chát
translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

In the middle of the first line 
                – when you first put pen to paper
And the full stop. Once you are rather satisfied
With 
A period that
          Went on and on     
An emptiness that could 
Imprison a person's life

From such a point poetry is born
To then 
Disappear forever

Together with the dissolution of the poet

Nói với nhà thơ về thơ


Giữa dòng chữ đầu – lúc ngươi đặt bút
Và dấu chấm hết. Khi tạm hài lòng
Là
Một khoảnh khắc
      Kéo dài
Một
Khoảng trống rỗng chiếm đoạt đời người

Từ đó thơ sinh ra
Rồi
Mất hút

Cùng với sự mất biến của nhà thơ

(Chúng ta đang trôi đi đâu?! – Nxb Đà Nẵng 2025)

Bùi Chát is the poet, writer, publisher and artist’s pen name. Bùi Quang Viễn was born on October 22, 1979, at Hố Nai, Biên Hòa, Đồng Nai Province, Việt Nam. Born to family of patriotic Catholic refugees from the North in 1954.

Graduated in 2001 from the Faculty of Literature, Linguistics, and Journalism of Hồ Chí Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities. Bùi Chát named and cofounded Nhóm Mở Miệng (Open Mouth Group) with the poet and writer Lý Đợi, promoting Graveyard & Garbage Poetry.

Nhà Xuất bản Giấy Vụn (Scrap Paper Publishing House), also founded by Bùi Chát, distributions of xerographically structured sensitive works by “pavement poets”. In 2004, Bùi Chát and cofounder Lý Đợi were detained for two days for distributing flyers at a poetry reading raided by the authority. In 2005, the culture department blocked their performance at the Goethe Institute in Hà Nội.

In 2011, Bùi Chát was awarded the IPA Freedom to Publish Prize “for his exemplary courage in upholding the freedom to publish.” He was arrested on his return to Việt Nam after receiving the award in Buenos Aires and detained for several days.

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.

Scabies | Hồ Chí Minh

thơ Hồ Chí Minh
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm dịch

The whole body covered in rich brocades of pinks and reds in six colours
Itchy itches scratching strike a tune
All VIPs covered in rich brocades
Strumming in harmony are cell mates or more so soulmates I say

Lại sang


Mãn thân hồng lục như xuyên cẩm
Thành nhật lao tao tự cổ cầm
Xuyên cẩm tù trung đô quý khách
Cổ cầm nạn hữu tận tri âm

Hồ Chí Minh [1890-1969] Bác Hồ, Uncle Ho, the poet was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969, and as its first prime minister from 1945 to 1955.

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.

Can’t sleep | Hồ Chí Minh

Vietnamese flag on flagpole textile cloth fabric waving on the top sunrise mist fog

thơ Hồ Chí Minh
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm dịch

2am 4am and it was six
tossing and turning all in the mix
8am 10am in a blink
the soul was engulf in a 5 points yellow star

Thụy bất trước


Nhất canh nhị canh hựu tam canh
Triển chuyển bồi hồi thụy bất thành
Tứ ngũ canh thì tài hợp nhãn
Mộng hồn hoàn nhiễu ngũ tiêm tinh.

Hồ Chí Minh [1890-1969] Bác Hồ, Uncle Ho, the poet was a Vietnamese revolutionary and politician who served as the founder and first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969, and as its first prime minister from 1945 to 1955.

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.

Trong album cũ của gia đình | Georg Trakl

Quê Hương in Hải Phòng, photography by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

By Georg Trakl
Translation into Vietnamese by Lê Vĩnh Tài

bao giờ bạn trở lại, u sầu
lẻ bóng, hỡi linh hồn lẻ loi
một ngày vàng rực rỡ và đã kết thúc
người bệnh yếu ớt đầu hàng cơn đau
âm vang giai điệu du dương và êm ái điên cuồng
hãy nhìn kia, hoàng hôn
đêm trở lại lần nữa và một người than khóc
một người khác đau khổ chịu đựng
trong sự cảm thông cứ rùng mình dưới những ngôi sao mùa thu
năm tháng cúi đầu sâu hơn nữa…

Always you return, melancholy,
Oh meekness of the lonely soul.
To the end a golden day glows
With humility the patient one bows before pain
Resounding with melodies and tender madness.
See! It is already dusk.
Again night comes in and a mortal lament
And with it another suffers.
Trembling beneath autumn stars
Yearly the head bows deeper.

Georg Trakl [1887 – 1914] was an Austrian poet and the brother of the pianist Grete Trakl. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists. He is perhaps best known for his poem “Grodek”, which he wrote shortly before he died of a cocaine overdose.

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.

HUMAN NATURE | Hoàng Xuân Sơn

Lê Vĩnh Tài, Lý Đợi, Bùi Chát , Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A poem in Vietnamese by Hoàng Xuân Sơn
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

spit garbage, say whatever you want to say
drunk or not we have but one life, we bleed
we dig our furrows we plant our seeds
may it be dusk or dawn we do not heed

we couldn’t sleep. we got up. we peed
no one can stop you from breaking confidence
O la la looming! like Sony Hoang or not
just note this. and I’ll leave it at that

if you are Lý Đợi, đợi = wait, then wait & savour
the wine. (Bùi = nutty) more than (Chát = sour)
nothing is left to add by the master
Lê Vĩnh Tài pee or not still, the cower

NHÂN BANG

( gợi ý từ một tút của Phương Trâm)

Cứ lải nhải đi ta không say
Đời chỉ cho ta một luống cày
Xới đất. hay là nằm xuống ngủ
Mặc bình minh lên với cỏ cây

Không ngủ. Ta cần đi giải thủy
Kìa ai trưng biển cấm đướng đài
Ô là là ! ai như sơn núi
Nháp xong. ôm bài thơ chạy dài

Đã là lý đợi cứ ngồi đợi
Rượu ngọt. sao bùi bảo chát chua
Vô bậy thêm miếng thầy lê vĩnh
Tè không ra được thì chịu thua

)(
dzuidzui@sumake.13avril25

Hoàng Xuân Sơn 

A renowned poet, born 1942, writes under various pseudonyms: Hoàng Xuân Sơn, Sử Mặc, Hoàng Hà Tỉnh, Vô Ðịnh… 

Hometown: Vỹ Dạ, Huế.

Lý Thường Kiệt Primary  

Bán Công High School and Quốc Học Huế High School

Bachelor of philosophy, and postgraduate of political science and commerce at The university of Văn Khoa Sài Gòn. 

Worked at the Ministry of Transport and Communication, a branch of the General Department of Postal Service of the Republic of Vietnam.

After 1975 worked in the Postal Office for 7 years. December 1981 settled in Montreal, Canada.

The poet’s career span from 1970 to the present day his work has been published in many literary publications. In vietnam: Văn, Chính Văn, Diễn  Ðàn, Khởi Hành, Nghiên Cứu Văn Học, Ðối Diện, Thân Hữu, Xây Dựng Nông Thôn, Ngưỡng Cửa, Nhà Văn. Outside of Vietnam: Làng Văn, Văn Học, Văn, Thế Kỷ 21, Chủ Ðề,  Sóng, Sóng Văn, Nắng Mới, Saigon Times, Hợp Lưu, Phố Văn,  Gío Văn , Canh Tân, Ði Tới, tạp chí Thơ. 

Collaborating platforms: Litviet (U.S.A), Tienve (Australia), Vanchuongviet… and the translations of his poetry into English by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm on SONGNGUTAITRAM.

Published work:

Viễn Phố (thơ, Việt Chiến xb 1988)

Huế Buồn Chi (thơ,93)

Lục Bát (thơ, 2005)

Ref: vanchuongviet.org

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.