Poet Tran Quang Dao, his heart sings mother's folk songs

(QBĐT) - When I opened the poetry collection "Secret Poetry", the first thing that caught my attention was that the poems were only numbered, from 0 to 101.

This is poem number 7, an odd number - a positive number - "Carrying a common passport / I go through the community gate to the world / my heart hums my mother's folk song / The country has many people like me / mine workers with dirty faces / farmers with muddy hands and feet / street sweepers / holding their heads high when passing through the border gate...". The poet's vision is so profound, the common passport - expressed so honestly that no poetry is seen but only the vibrations that reach the soul - I once went through the border gate alone to attend a scientific conference - at that time I was bewildered, timidly going through the security gate, now I fully appreciate the beauty of the verse: "Carrying a common passport" ... but "my heart still hums my mother's folk song" - the national identity is engraved in the eyes, in the footsteps to go out into the world while "my heart hums a song". "My parents have never been granted a visa / they carry a traditional passport passed down from their ancestors / Giao Chi's finger points to the South". Reading the last verses, my heart trembled, poetry is truly poetry, when with only 3 lines of poetry, it entrusts an indelible mark to the national identity.

Poetry and some works of poet Tran Quang Dao.

I like poems 18, 19, 22, 27, 29, 31, 33... perhaps because there I was immersed in the familiar feelings of the rice fields and the banks - where my childhood was attached to the land where my family gathered - Quang Binh - "like-minded people are connected" . "The Lao wind leads the whole summer/ whistling and blowing the banana shoots/ Blowing fire into father's face/ Blowing fire into mother's back/ Withering the rivers/ The thirsty calf stares at its dry footprints/ Its mouth is on the cactus/ Thorns prick the burn marks/ The sand burns the human retina/ The sand cooks the skin of the feet/ Drops of sweat boil on the skin/ Falling to the ground are salt/ The summer lullaby hangs across the wind/ The tree roots move and listen/ The bamboo bank beats with a clapper/ That's where I was born/ Quang Binh..." (18). Poetry written like this needs no rhyme, the silent notes of the soul are hidden in the emotional view of time and space.

Poetry and images are like molds, like carvings, like engravings into the soul of the feeling of my homeland - the place where I was born. "Mother goes against the wind, the market stalls/the shoulder pole bends in the Central region/the child cries out in the wind/mother's milk still burns in the afternoon" (76). Poetry seems to crack from tears, from the bitterness and sweetness of the homeland, the writing style is simple and ordinary but the poetry and images make us ache, against the Lao wind, the shoulder pole bends, mother's milk burns in the sun and wind - the harsh land of Lao wind and burning sand.

The contrasting structure in each stanza of poem 77 evokes many associations and thoughts: “July/a cup of water smells of wine/the Vu Lan season is bustling…/Neighbors take their parents to a nursing home/noisily arguing”. Poetry is like that, concise, few words but much meaning, no words of explanation or justification, just a few lines of poetry, reality appears…

“Wearing yellow clothes: Ripe rice/as white as the pearl of heaven/the fragrant rice captivates the soul of the homeland/Father plows the deep fields in the cold season/mother wears a raincoat to plant rice/mother lulls the rice plants to grow/mother lulls you to sleep when you are far away/Thanks to the mud of the homeland/thanks to the rough hands/thanks to the bent back of the rice fields/thanks to the songs of October/The incense tree bends like ripe rice/the soul of the homeland follows me every day” (27). He can be called a poet of the fields, of the farmer “one sun, two dews” , when he has a sympathetic view of the hardships of farmers. Poetry is like a monologue, a dialogue with parents-the diligent farmer with the crops from the hot season to the dry season. That is the soul of the homeland, the soul of the nation. “I owe nothing to the innkeeper/to the beloved land…/If I die without turning back to the mountains/I am a heartless person” (26). The homeland is always in the poet's mind, so each verse written is like a reminder, like an admonition: "After three years of death, a fox turns back to the mountain."

Poetry cannot lack you - the lyrical subject. "The day I loved you, I made a ring of grass/the grass was lush and happy/touching the young, trembling grass/as if the grass had touched my heart" (65). Reflecting a pragmatic view, with a view of first love, he had a very good lyrical verse, reading it makes me flutter. The poet has ignored all pragmatic thoughts to find true love "Who loves gold and looks up/I only love grass/grass knows how to grow more branches/grass knows how to silently weave a silent carpet/on the soft grass I write your name". The perception of love in the "golden age" of his poetry seems to escape reality to reach the realm of eternal love.

The poet walks alone in loneliness. “There were times when I shed tears, was moved and “felt” the pain of the character” (Writer/Translator Khanh Phuong-Mat Thi, p.6). “A writer must feel pain somewhere to write well.”

Reading the entire collection “Mật thi” my heart was also tinged with sadness along with the author. I felt like he was a traveler, lonely on his journey with poetry and with life. “An autumn leaf falls into loneliness/still as a statue/I sit/staring at the empty space/The leaf leaves the branch, dyed with the color of meditation/twirling in the wind/a spiritual dance/farewell/Holding a small leaf/the stem falls, the scar dries/the skin of the tree heals/I hear the leaves on the branch still singing/why am I sad/lonely/why can’t I be like a leaf?/One day I leave/the poem will dye itself/shine!” (79).

Overcoming pain, overcoming loneliness, his way of thinking is so good when talking about the tragedy between the finite time of human life and the endless time of the universe. Poetry and imagery: “autumn leaves fall, leaves leave the branches” … are negative, but “leaves on the branches still sing” as well as “poetry will dye itself” are positive.

Many times, the "repentance" in his poems awakens in us so many perceptions: "I have broken the path back to childhood/by sowing evil every day/by deceitful schemes/by jealousy and treachery/I am like a floating poisonous cloud" (34). Having struggled for more than half of his life, he repented of himself when he "lost his way back to childhood" . Poetry is the voice of the soul, his poetic emotions evoke sympathy with readers when they "lost their way back to childhood" ...

Looking back, regretfully, he returned to the grass: “Running my hands on the grass/the wounds heal themselves/Closing my eyes/the grass opens an imaginary horizon/someone throws my childhood into the air/The scent of the grass cannot be removed/entangled with the afternoon/the year I was 16//Lost to you in a game of chicken grass/won the enemy and returned/couldn’t show the way back/What does the grass hide from me/that the virgin closes her leaves/Running my hands on the grass/the wounds heal themselves/Please don’t let the moon shine on the leaves…” (53).

For poet Tran Quang Dao, the image of grass enters his poetry with regret - "the year I was 16" and belief in eternity, endlessness - "Running hands on the grass/wounds heal themselves".

Dr. Hoang Thu Thuy

Source: https://www.baoquangbinh.vn/van-hoa/202412/nha-tho-tran-quang-dao-long-ngan-ca-dao-me-2222724/