But no matter where he went or what he did, he always harbored deep affection for his homeland. Even the titles of his poetry collections partly reflect this: Child of the Sand, Sea Alluvium, Legend of Cua Tung, Le Thuy Forever...
In the poem "Years of Friendship," with the dedication: "Dedicated to my classmates from Le Thuy High School," the author expresses: We have spent years of friendship / On the old, moss-covered path / Half a lifetime of ups and downs, yet we return to each other / And find joy as if nothing weighs heavily on us.
It is the reality of life, the author's return to his hometown, the place where he was born and raised, the poet's journey back in time to rediscover his youthful past with overwhelming emotions, especially the joyful feeling of touching upon memories of his school days, the most beautiful and dreamy age of a person's life. The joy seems to surpass everything when remembering friends of the same age. The reality of life is intertwined with the reality of emotions, making it easily relatable to many. We have in those years friends / mother in the cold night wind / father in the grains of sand under the starry night / and sister in the mountains separating us.
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| Anthology of works by poet Ngo Minh - Photo: PXD |
The poem's tone is realistic, with details carefully chosen to evoke a nostalgic longing for home and the arduous, challenging yet memorable years of school life. These memories surge like endless ocean waves into distant recollections. The refrain "We had friends in those years" lingers on incessantly. And from this realistic description and narrative, the poem concludes with a generalized, abstract, and soaring resonance, expanding the realm of associations in true poetic style: "It 's so cold that poetry cannot sleep / We light a fire to warm each other's hearts / Outside, the river nestles in the shadows of the grass / The cold night stretches across the sound of the train whistle..."
The poet identifies himself as "Child of the Sand," which is also the title of one of his poems and a collection of poems. He expresses this through poetry: "Child of the sand / eyes accustomed to opening to the level of the sharp wind / to perceive in the eyes of the sea a horizon / crystallizing into grains of salt of my soul..."
The seaside villages, both his paternal and maternal hometowns, are almost always present in his poetry—simple, profound, and at times brimming with nostalgia, making the poet feel as if he cannot sit or stand still in any of these four places. In the poem "Legend of Cua Tung" (which is also the title of a poetry collection), the poet creates moving and haunting poetic images when speaking about his mother's homeland: "Oh homeland / Cua Tung, Vinh Quang, Cat Son, Thuy Ban / cold wind on this side and that side seeking blankets / the narrow river only has leaps left / people seek to cross and sand seeks to cross / twenty years the river has become blood / the sea flickers with the fire of incense in repentance."
That is Cua Tung, the poet's maternal hometown; the Vinh Linh fortress; the Ben Hai bridge; the Hien Luong river, a place of memories and affections, holding within it a time of North-South separation by day and night. There, the deep love for his maternal homeland is evident, and a towering monument stands in the hearts of many, representing the aspiration for national reunification, to overcome visible and invisible divisions and separations, to bring North and South back together as one, so that the great reunion would never again speak of parting. This aspiration, both so ordinary and simple yet so immense, led the entire nation through a twenty-year long march before reaching the shores of reunification.
In a prose poem dedicated to fellow poets from Hue titled "Poems for Le Dinh Ty, Mai Van Hoan, and Hai Ky on wandering winter nights in Hue," the author sketches a series of quick sketches in a slow-motion film about the close friendship during the difficult years of 45 years ago (1980). The images are striking and evocative: we wandered aimlessly through the winter, together in the pouring rain, bringing poetry to small rooms where the light wasn't bright enough to discern the gaunt features of our friends, only fleeting smiles on our lips fueling the burning passion of our poetry. We were together in the deep, dark night, verses of poetry enveloping aching hearts, a few glances calling forth a symphony. The trees by the roadside leaned down, heavy with rain or perhaps silently sharing the feelings of our hearts.
Homeland and deep, enduring friendships are recreated in poetry through memories of rain and sunshine, through the space of a small room filled with warmth and affection, through the lamplight barely illuminating the gaunt faces of friends during the difficult days of the subsidy period. Indeed, nothing is more memorable and deeply felt than the precious memories of friendship, especially those etched in memory of hardship.
The poet has departed to the realm of white clouds, but poetry remains with humanity, steadfast, loyal, and enduring like a tiny grain of sand, yet so hauntingly captivating:
tomorrow
Life buried in sand, forgotten.
The sea still has grains of salt.
pick up
I would like to say that...
(Still the same 2)
The spirit and love of the homeland remain, forever holding a pole, waiting by the shore of life, without beginning or end.
Pham Xuan Dung
Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/van-hoa/202512/tho-ngo-minh-sau-tham-hon-que-9ec0280/
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