Born in 1945 in Van Gia town (Van Ninh district), poet Tran Van Gia is now 80 years old but is still active in his creative activities. For someone who has 20 poetry collections and is always well received by the public, this is not an easy task. In 1996, he published his first collection of poems, "Love is as beautiful as a poem", and it was not until 2004 that he published his second collection: "The wind carries the kitchen smoke to the sky". Since then, he has published poems every 1-2 years.
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| Cover of the book Green Songs on the Shore of Van Phong Bay. |
I have been close to poet Tran Van Gia since before 1975, when I was just a 11th-12th grade student who was just starting to write poetry and loved Tran Van Gia's simple, rustic poems. He wrote poems about his birthplace, the Van Ninh land with Tuan Le mangrove forest and immense sand dunes. Later, after 13 years of working in the new economic zone, he wrote poems for the poor people who cherished every drop of morning sunlight, carried heavy loads of goods on their shoulders, and even the village roads with bright yellow butterfly pea trees leading the way. He was also one of the writers and poets in Khanh Hoa who was admitted to the Vietnam Writers' Association very early.
“Green Songs on the Shore of Van Phong Bay” with a blue cover, different from previous poetry collections, Tran Van Gia often illustrated with his own portrait. The 70-page book with a sparkling long poem of the sound of waves includes 4 chapters. In chapter 1 “Nostalgic Song”, he mentions the old places of Khanh Hoa . There are still smooth poems: “There are nights when I sleep/Pillowing my arms on a great dream under the high sky/The more I understand and the more I understand/Which sage does not love his homeland”.
“Pick up a six-eight verse on the white sand of Hon Gom peninsula” is chapter 2 of the epic poem. With the strength of the six-eight verse form, he included in this chapter: “Today and a thousand years later/Sand and people live together in love”. In this chapter, he mentioned his mother a lot: “The afternoon leans down on the blue smoke/The blue smoke follows mother to work to raise her children/Mother’s shoulders are tired/Carrying a burden since she was still in the countryside”. “Carrying a burden since she was still in the countryside” - just one verse summarizes the image of a mother who has worked hard all her life for her children. The next two chapters: “The time when the waves are not peaceful” and “The season when the flowers bloom” are still simple verses but the words seem to come from the poet’s heart. Tran Van Gia’s epic poem is like a symphony leading readers through storms and to a day of peace.
In his precarious age, he said, each published collection of poems could be his last. He only said that, but the springs when flowers were still blooming, the Nha Trang sea lapping steadily, and the entire Van Phong bay still inspired him to write verses.
KHUE VIET TRUONG
Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/van-hoa/202504/loi-hat-xanh-ben-bo-vinh-van-phong-a925d09/
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