Poet Duong Van Luong, the soul that braves the sun and rain

(QBĐT) - One day after storm No. 3 ( Yagi ), I received a new collection of poems by poet Duong Van Luong. Holding Nau Tram , Hoi Nha Van Publishing House, September 2024 in my hand, I felt like I was talking to him. Still there, a poet in the military but always gentle, caring like the river of my hometown.

Duong Van Luong does not hide his Quang Binh origin, from his voice, sincere way of life... to his poetry. "Growing up in the fields of reeds and sedge/My feet crawling in the mud/Struggling to live through the cold seasons" , (I) and he firmly believe that we are "A little essential oil with a bitter fragrance".

Poetry is ultimately a tear of feelings. And as the famous writer Trinh Bich Ngan, author of the poetry collection Leaning Towards Pain , said, poetry cannot bear to be concealed. The success of each poet, in the end, is to expose the tear of feelings in his poetic heritage. Therefore, having not met poet Duong Van Luong, reading his poems, I felt like I was having a dialogue with the author.

Poetry collections by poet Duong Van Luong.

Deep Brown consists of 69 poems. The collection of poems shows that Duong Van Luong is still a poet of contemplation, poetry distilled from the tears of the self. In this collection of poems, reading through the table of contents, one can identify a variety of topics, some realistic topics, some unconscious topics. In particular, the topic of writing about the homeland of Quang Binh is prominent.

Returning to Thach Ban junction, Thinking about Mooc stream, Taking you back to Le Thuy, Taking you back to Dong Hoi, are poems about the homeland with specific place names. In addition, the homeland is contained in poems with metaphorical names, such as: Village, Bitter sweet alluvium, Raincoat, Mother, Dipper of rain, Through the distillation season, Saying love dance, Harmony, Crooked bamboo tree, Floating... Or in other words, the homeland haunts Duong Van Luong, binding his soul so that the poetry can speak.

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Xuan Thuy commune, the hometown of poet Duong Van Luong, is located on the bank of Kien Giang river, next to Kien Giang town, the district capital of Le Thuy. He was born before Lunar New Year - he was likened to a "hibernating snake" . For the people of Central Vietnam, that time of poverty was "the time of the crop". Hunger.

Bathing in silt from the womb

My mother gave birth to me in the flood season.

Thatched roof, straw bed, empty rice pot

Braving the sun and rain to harvest sprouting rice

(Bitter sweet alluvium)

In Bitter and Sweet Alluvium , Xuan Thuy commune in particular and Le Thuy district in general before the August Revolution appear as a desolate but peaceful picture, the people there, though poor, work hard. “In the dry year, the water level is slow to go down/The alluvium is hungry, the land is also dry/Wandering around picking sickles, happy on the day of plowing/The deep brown sunlight shines in each other's eyes”. But that is all love, the immense memories of childhood. “The day my mother gave birth to me, the grass covered the porch/Playing with grass, my hair was still in a tuft/The small blade of grass, the arms of friends/Eyes, leaves, the stars in the sky, yearning for childhood”, (Through the Distillation Season).

As human beings, we all have a mother who gave birth to us. There is no poet from ancient times to the present who has not written about mothers. Duong Van Luong is no exception. Mothers sacrifice and raise each of us. Even when we are adults, mothers are always the place we rely on when we are weak, stumble, and in pain.

The countryside has the mother and vice versa. That is the first reality. In literature and art, the mother's shadow is embedded in the countryside's shadow. That is the second reality, the art of metaphor. In the poem "Ao roi", the image of the poet's mother and also the mother of the Central region appears: "Mother bends her back to plant rice in the field/The afternoon drizzle and cold wind/A raincoat and conical hat cover her thin body" ; and the last two lines are raised, haunting: "Mother plants rice all winter/Covering the wind every afternoon" .

The image of father and mother in Duong Van Luong's poetry is very simple: "Father comes home from plowing the fields/A bucket of rainwater quenches his thirst/Mother goes out to the yard to scoop water/Cassava mixed with fragrant sticky rice" (A bucket of rainwater). Rural, but to him, it is a whole world of longing, a fragrant milk of the soul. That is the light of Prajna, according to the Buddhist concept in the soul of poetry.

Duong Van Luong is proud of his hometown Quang Binh, he is a son of Quang Binh; where “Mountains run along/Rivers branch across/Immense green fields, vast white sand/The Truong Son mountain range is covered with clouds all year round/My face looks at the waves of the East Sea”, (Take me back to Le Thuy).

Quang Binh has 5 big rivers, Kien Giang is just a small river, only 58km long, originating from the foot of mountain 1001 (southwest of Le Thuy) flowing to Tran Xa junction, converging with Long Dai river at Tran Xa junction, forming Nhat Le river, flowing into the East Sea at Nhat Le estuary. Quang Binh is the most "narrow" place in the Central region, the river is short and steep. Perhaps that is why, drought and flooding in the lowest area of ​​Quang Binh like Le Thuy are "a matter of heaven".

"The low-lying land is flooded every year/Water enters the house/People climb up the soil/Living with the water/Clear and muddy with the water/My life is bitter and sweet with alluvium". Only through bitterness can we understand sweetness; only through hardship and perseverance, that is of course the law. The verse "My life is bitter and sweet with alluvium" is not only a verse of nostalgia, a verse of conviction, but also a verse of wisdom about life.

Among the poems about Quang Binh homeland, perhaps Dong Hoi is the poem that encapsulates both past and present, both history and present, and pride in the culture of a land.

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Bau Tro is the mirror of heaven reflecting the vicissitudes of life.

Still not free of worldly wrinkles

Mossy ancient citadel with many layers of history

Luy Thay heard horses neighing and elephants roaring

Dong Hoi night remembers the moon of Han Mac Tu

The waves of love beat the melody of sorrow

(Dong Hoi)

Duong Van Luong always looked at his homeland with a sincere heart, cherishing its simplicity and rusticity: “Whoever goes to Bao Ninh/buy me a bottle of fish sauce/tapioca dumplings/add dried sweet potato wrap/Go back to Hai Thanh and buy some cans of dried shrimp/A gift from the countryside without the stamp of rich or poor”, (Dong Hoi). And the poet proudly said: “The people of Dong Hoi are as affectionate as the rivers and seas/I have spent my life in salty salt, spicy ginger/This morning you came back in a long dress and white hat/The city of roses is like the one I loved”.

“The City of Roses” is the symbol and “brand” of Dong Hoi, but few people know that it was called by the Bulgarian poetess, Blaga Dimitrova, when she visited Dong Hoi during the years of war and destruction, when the country was not yet unified.

Rose, the flower of love, of beauty. In ancient Greek, or in the Bible, love is power, good news and victory. “The city of roses as I have loved”, that is the pride of the homeland.

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“The communal house pond is now a lotus pond/My village twists itself into the city/A little nostalgia also tinges with bewilderment/Happy and sad in my hair, many times with frost”, (Village). This is the shortest poem in Deep Brown, but the echoes of Village are vast.

The poem The Crooked Bamboo Tree gives us a different perspective. Everyone knows that bent bamboo cannot do anything. “No one buys bamboo to make beams/No one cuts bamboo to weave sieves and baskets” and suffers a lonely fate “Alone, bathing in the rain and sun/Enjoying with the birds”. However, the last two lines “The bamboo tree bends its back against fate/Overcoming disability” suddenly pop up.

At the age of over seventy, and also a lecturer of Philosophy, perhaps because of that, Duong Van Luong's poetry has a depth of reflection. Reading his poetry, it is easy to get stuck in the heart, to think, from seemingly simple verses. Behind the verses there is fate, there is human life. "On the day of my hometown, a big bridge crossed the river/The ferry across the river carried the full weight of history/The golden sand pillow of the old wharf was silent/Joy and sadness pondered the ups and downs", (Ups and downs).

In the collection Deep Brown , many poems have different layers. They can be seen in Time, Indeterminate, Serenity, Surrealism, Existence, Opening, Balance, Allegory, Low and High, Identity, Suggestion... I call these poems written unconsciously, at the unconscious level.

The artistic space in Deep Brown not only has symbols of seasons, trees, flowers, sun, wind, rivers and seas...; but also has the art of using layers of words, reality and unreality, and the antithesis of language-consciousness about pairs of philosophical categories from nature, the universe and creation.

Colonel Duong Van Luong is a Doctor of Philosophy and a member of the Vietnam Writers Association . He had a stroke and family problems. I was worried that it would be difficult for him to return to poetry. It turned out that I was wrong, sometimes forgetting Phung Quan's poem, "I hold on to the poem to stand up."

Having read Self-awareness, Through the Dark and Bright Regions, Calling the Sun ; and now Deep Brown, I realize that Duong Van Luong is still tirelessly searching for questions within himself. “Quietly all my life, I never knew/There exists within me the non-me”, (The non-me). That is the consciousness towards creative work.

Ngo Duc Hanh

Source: https://www.baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202409/nha-tho-duong-van-luong-tam-hon-doi-nang-cong-mua-2221307/