Like a river that never stops flowing

“Forever is the River” is the first collection of poems by poet Vinh Ha. But before that, friends and readers knew him through poems published in newspapers. The most impressive thing is that on his own social networking site (Facebook with his real name: Tran Van Phuc), he writes almost continuously every day and if counted, the number can reach hundreds, thousands of poems.

Cover of the poetry collection "Forever the River" by Vinh Ha - Photo: XUAN HUNG

I and certainly many readers are surprised by the reserve and speed of poetry writing in the gentle and modest Vinh Ha. For me, I feel that Vinh Ha does not write poetry but poetry comes to him. He and poetry are like two sides of a leaf. When mentioning leaves, I have an implicit comparison. If Vinh Ha's life is like a garden, he is the one who takes care of it and works diligently every day. And every day he writes poetry as if he were writing his life on each leaf.

As a classmate and colleague of Vinh Ha, I know that he had an experienced childhood, in the poetic semi-mountainous region: Xu Cua, Cam Lo Thuong, Quang Tri province. The red soil of his hometown is famous for green tea, pepper, jackfruit, pineapple... and is also famous as "the land of beautiful girls" (according to the words of writer Hoang Phu Ngoc Tuong). After a difficult childhood of sweet potatoes and cassava, Vinh Ha came to Hue University, Faculty of Literature.

Here, four years of studying nurtured his literary blood and later journalism gave him the steps to travel, from which literary inspiration sublimated into poems. Just like that, every day, life and poetry, poetry and life, for Vinh Ha always beat in tandem. Not to mention, for nearly thirty years he has lived as a journalist in Kon Tum , he has had many trips and works that have helped him become a member of the Journalists Association and also a member of the Kon Tum Provincial Literature and Arts Association.

Perhaps, Cua land is known as “the land of beautiful girls” so Vinh Ha’s poems are mainly love poems, if not mostly love poems. Love, of course, is the eternal theme of poetry, music, painting, and art. But for Vinh Ha, love has been raised to a new level, like a sanctuary, where he trembles in waiting, joyfully welcomes, saddened by separation, resentful by loss...

But whether gain or loss, between gain and loss, Vinh Ha remains faithful to love as he experienced: I have written love poems/To change someone for a lifetime/... I and poetry have gone a thousand times and seen/The initial dream had some jealousy.../I and poetry and crazy life/Still silently walking with poets/Letting my heart restless countless times/Poetry saves my sadness for a thousand lifetimes (I and poetry).

Vinh Ha writes love poems, but strangely, the lyrical characters he aims for in his poems are both specific and vague. A certain girl seems real: Do you still remember or have you forgotten/ The two of us at that time had the name of first love (Remembering winter), and there is also a girl who is distant and illusory: I come back and sit waiting at the riverbank/The banyan tree with the broken handle of the bucket/Who steers the bamboo boat in the early morning/Leaving me and my flowers alone (Riverbank).

Sometimes he was startled as if love left in his memory a painful kiss: I loved you in so much misery/Now I've made mistakes with so much bitterness (Remembering the past) and sometimes he was nostalgic: Where are the beloved days/Where are the clumsy expressions of love/The sun sets and the shadow gradually fades away/Why am I still standing there waiting and hesitating (Like a cloud shadow).

Vinh Ha wrote many love poems, but he also wrote many poems about his homeland, his family and his beloved relatives. Reading his poems in this collection, we will realize one thing, that Vinh Ha is a person who loves his homeland very much. That distant but nostalgic village appears clearly through each sentence, is the background for the lyrical voice to speak, is the reason for him to anchor the youthful dream of his life.

That is the poetic image of the countryside: The boat returns carrying the full and empty moonlight/I wander with the ferry at the wharf ..., it is the image of a beloved family: I return to look back at my childhood/ The river at the wharf slowly flows in the evening/On the bank, my mother sells shrimp/Under the river, my father sets a fishing net and casts a net (Reflecting on my childhood). He loves his homeland so much that even in his dreams he wants to return. In the collection of poems, there are many poems such as Rethinking my childhood, I will return, Only my mother, Revisiting my childhood, Returning to my homeland, Missing my homeland, Returning to my homeland, Forever warm with father's love, Crescent moon, Of my homeland, Who returns to Cam Lo, My homeland, Will you return... all have a deep feeling of nostalgia for my homeland and roots.

Literature and poetry have always been to express the will, the feelings, the heart. This is also what poet Vinh Ha shares with readers through this collection of poems. In terms of art, "Forever is the River" does not have any new breakthroughs in poetics and tone, but the author is quite confident in using poetic language. Besides that, he is fluent in exploiting the genres of six-eight poetry and free verse. The author's poetic language is also quite rich, although in some places it is trite, forced or inaccurate when read.

Personally, I think that these shortcomings can be overlooked because the author is not too concerned with form, poetics, and does not spend too much time on words when composing. However, it should also be added that if the author worked harder in finding topics, knew how to control superficial emotions, and was more selective in language, the compositions would be better and have more depth.

Born in 1965, at the age of nearly sixty, with 60 selected poems in this collection (the number of poems is also equivalent to the cycle of a person's life), "Forever is the river" (with the meaning of the author's pen name: Vinh Ha) is a precious spiritual gift from the author to readers, family, brothers and friends.

Anyway, I still hope that author Vinh Ha will continue to copy poems on each leaf, so that the poetry garden of his life will always be green and shady. Like a river that never stops flowing, like life that is always tolerant and open. And like the poems he wrote, with endless love and trust.

Pham Xuan Hung

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