Don’t drink espresso at four in the afternoon.
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Liberation Lit
Following a link from A Practical Policy, I read this story, “Segundo’s Revenge,” by Joe Emersberger, a writer unknown to me. I had read some other things at Liberation Lit, but nothing that carried out the LL mission to combine the political and the artistic quite so deftly. It’s a terrific story, though I wish it were not quite reticent — I could do with a bit more characterization and description, but I kind of see why Emersberger keeps it simple, with a powerful through-line. I’ll be keeping this piece in mind as I work out how to make poems and stories of my own out of “political” material. When I was beginning as a writer many hears ago there was a strong bias in the classroom against the didactic and the political in literature and I absorbed that vibe even while having strong political convictions. I mean, I’ve already written plenty of political poems, but I don’t really know how to do it — I have no systematic understanding, though the frank admission in the Liberation Lit writers’ guidelines that there is some strongly perceived division between the political and the aesthetic is a healthy admission, I think. Perhaps at this moment in the West we are without a synthesis of the political and the aesthetic with the result that we have to make up a new method for each piece of work.
I’m trying to gather material impressions while I’m here in Vietnam that I’ll be able to turn into poems and stories — the story ideas I’ve had so far each take on the political situation of the sympathetic foreigner encountering the people and places and institutions of Vietnam. Nothing has gelled, but then I haven’t taken time to sit down and fill out my brief notes, which is how things usually begin for me.
Meetings (VN Diary No. 22)
Because I haven’t been feeling well the last couple of days, I’ve had to cancel a couple of meetings, which of course throws everything into disarray. Add to that the fact that I’m going south on next Tuesday and it makes for scrambled plans. I haven’t met nearly as many people here as I had hoped. On some days I have felt as if people are actively avoiding meeting with the American professor. When I was planning this trip, I thought that Hoang Hung and Ngo Tu Lap would be here to help, but Hung has permenantly decamped and Lap is nowhere to be found. One of the poets I’ve really wanted to meet again in Hanoi is Phan Huyen Thu, whose poems I helped translate when I was here before. Unfortunately, she left town on business just about the time I arrived — I’m not quite clear about when she’s returning, but I hope it will be before I leave. In the south, though, I will be in good hands. Ly Lan and Mai Tran have promised to introduce me to all their friends, so, ironically, while I thought most of my work was in Hanoi, going forward it may be that most is in HCMC and Hue. I also have wonderfully rewarding and ongoing friendships at the publishing house (The Gioi / The World) that sponsored me on my Fulbright, but they are journalists and editors, who, while wonderfully helpful, can’t really help me make the contacts I need in the poetry world. It has been a frustrating, though not completely worthless couple of weeks in terms of my specific project; but then I’m in the lovely city of Hanoi, which takes some of the edge off the frustration.
Impiety (VN Diary No. 21)
Perhaps for the impious nature of the poem I posted the other day, I have been struck with Uncle Ho’s revenge. Nothing serious, but the very nice British doctor at the clinic gave me a run of cipro to get my gut back to normal. Any more information than that would be too much information. I’m already feeling better after one dose of antibiotics. But impiety is something to watch out for and this place will make you superstitious. Does wide-spread belief in active forces beneath the surface of nature actually create (or release?) such forces? Hanoi will make you wonder. In any case, I have four days to recover, since we are moving into the April 30 / May 1st holiday. April 30 is the day that northern troops captured Saigon in 1975, thus putting an end to the division of the country — and May 1st is of course May Day. After Tet, the lunar New Year, this is the big Vietnamese holiday extravanganza. I’ll be spending the time reading and writing while my Vietnamese friends party.
Poem
I hesitate to post this poem, written just this afternoon, fearing that it is insufficiently respectful; but whatever disrespect it exhibits is only an attempt to express a more profound respect. One never gets entirely outside the lecture room, of course; but one chafes. The seat is hard, the oscillating fan insufficient to ventilate the musty smell of old books in a tropical climate.
A Lecture on Vietnamese Culture
The professor tells the visitors
that today they will learn about
the betel leaf and the areca nut,
which is the history of Vietnam
in one small package, he says,
and then recites a song
for his audience, who have
been brought captive by a guide
to listen, though they would
be walking the narrow
streets lost in the heat blinded
by the haze of burning paper
from the temples, the sidewalks
filled with families eating soup
and gossiping, but they will
never be allowed outside –
today it’s the betel leaf
and the areca nut and slaked lime
for them, Vietnam as a quid
pro quo, their being here to hear
the lecture, offered many times
to others and polished smooth
as a Buddha’s toe kissed for
centuries, rubbed for good luck.
They are allowed nothing else.
Not the State’s music spilling
from the loudspeakers nor
the singing from the Cathedral
punctuated by the air horns
of tourist buses and the tinkle
of cyclo bells, the calls of women
hawking fish and fresh bread.
Tomorrow it will be coconuts
and when they are finished with
nuts they will move on to fruit
and flowers. And if they come
every day, before long they will
be allowed to discuss weather
and international relations,
which are very like the betel leaf.
(Hanoi, April 2009)