Surrealist poetry is not unfamiliar.

Surrealism originated from German mystical Romanticism. However, Surrealism truly took shape with the French poet André Breton and his collaborators. Following André Breton's manifesto (1924), the term Surrealism became widely used in literature and art. Surrealism began in poetry and later had a significant influence on painting, film, prose, and more.

Poetry performance at the Vietnam Poetry Day Spring 2025 - "Van Xuan Landscape" Poetry Night, organized by the People's Committee of Pho Yen City in coordination with the Provincial Association of Literature and Arts in February 2025.

Surrealism's philosophical ideas were based on Bergson's theory of intuition and Freud's psychoanalysis. The aesthetic principles of this school can be summarized as follows: focusing on the human unconscious; emphasizing spontaneity, free from the control of reason; rejecting logical analysis, relying only on intuition, dreams, hallucinations, delirium, and instinctive premonitions; and calling for the innocence of childhood… Therefore, Surrealism advocated for poetry to flow freely. From these principles, Surrealism proposed a style of automatic writing.

In fact, Surrealism, in the sense of a movement, completely disintegrated after only about ten years since its inception (in the late 1930s). However, even today, the (positive) elements of Surrealism have spread throughout the world, including Vietnam, elevating poetry to a new level.

Surrealist poets often place great importance on constructing surrealist poetic imagery. When poetry lacks or shuns rhyme and meter, imagery becomes the key factor determining the poem's quality. So, how does surrealist poetic imagery differ from conventional poetic imagery?

The fundamental argument of the Surrealists when constructing surrealist poetic imagery is that it must be born "from the convergence of two realities that are more or less distant" (Breton quotes Reverdy in the first manifesto of Surrealism). The more distant and far-fetched the two images placed side by side are, the more interesting and surreal they become.

Of course, this disparity requires a suitable similarity. Three indispensable elements when constructing surrealist poetic imagery are: surprise, difference, and absurdity.

According to Dr. Dao Huy Hiep, the leading figure of surrealist literature - the poet Robert Brechon - pointed out three levels of constructing surrealist poetic imagery, from simple to complex.

This article takes a different approach and therefore does not delve deeply into the theoretical aspects. In fact, in Vietnam, poetic imagery with surrealist undertones has been used by poets for a long time. Folklore and medieval literature also bear the imprint of surrealist poetic imagery.

During the New Poetry period (1932-1945), French culture and literature had already spread quite widely in Vietnam. Therefore, scattered throughout the works of poets such as Han Mac Tu, Bich Khe, Che Lan Vien, Nguyen Xuan Sanh, etc., we find, to varying degrees, consciously or spontaneously, the presence of surrealist elements. Among the New Poetry poets, the most striking surrealist influence is found in Han Mac Tu.

Surrealist poetry did not develop systematically within Vietnamese poetry, especially after 1945 and during the resistance wars against France and the United States. It was not until the Doi Moi (Renovation) period that Vietnamese poets had the opportunity to rediscover what historical circumstances had previously prevented.

Over the past few decades, although surrealist poetry has not had a major and widespread influence on Vietnamese poets, there are still a number of authors who have been closely associated with this trend. These include poets such as Hoang Cam, Le Dat, Tran Dan, Hoang Hung, Duong Tuong, followed by Nguyen Quang Thieu, Mai Van Phan…

The poem "The Wildflower" can be considered Hoang Cam's most representative and beautiful surrealist poem, both in terms of subconsciousness - dreams and spontaneous writing style. It is an Eastern-style surrealist poem that soars from a poetic and romantic Quan Ho countryside. Poets like Nguyen Quang Thieu and Mai Van Phan... are also successful in "Vietnamese-izing" surrealist imagery, gaining acceptance from Vietnamese readers.

Thus, we see that surrealist poetry is not unfamiliar to Vietnamese poets. In fact, in the poetry movements of any locality, we can find verses bearing surrealist influences. A series of poetic images can be found scattered throughout the poetry collections of authors in Thai Nguyen over the past few decades:

Dreaming of sleeping in damp bamboo hair.

Lo Giang is like a young woman missing her husband.

(Astonished by Ha Giang - Nguyen Duc Hanh)

The river concealed countless underground tunnels from the wartime period.

The water flows gently, the road sleeps to the lullaby of the water.

(My Cau River - Vo Sa Ha)

My child, the coriander plant walks out onto the road on the day of farewell.

(Poem before the anniversary of death - Nguyen Thuy Quynh)

The thin string holds your soul in the depths of your eyes.

Love poems bind my life together.

(The Sun's Reverse Direction - The Chinh)

Images such as "The river like a young woman missing her husband," "The road sleeps in the lullaby of the water," and "Bitter as night" are surrealistic in nature. In particular, Nguyen Thuy Quynh's image of "Child, coriander..." is "extracted" from the folk verse "The wind carries the mustard plant to heaven / the coriander remains to endure gossip," and "The thin string binds my soul... a love poem..." is also formed from the idiom "a soft string binds tightly." These are very Vietnamese surrealistic images.

Surrealism is merely a means, not a "magic bullet," to creating valuable works, as some mistakenly believe. The most important thing to avoid is the desire to show off one's surrealist writing to impress others. The theorist M. Micheli once said: "To create surrealist works, one must possess 'surrealist talent,' and the unconscious in the surrealist artist's work must have a basis in socio-political experience, science… related to Freud's and K. Jung's unconscious psychology…" (quoted by Nguyen Van Dan).

One can arrive at a general conclusion: surrealist poetry is not at all unfamiliar. Its emergence had only one major purpose: to fight against rigidity, to transcend stale reality and find a reality at a new, higher level.

As mentioned above, from a philosophical perspective, Surrealism no longer exists, but it is undeniable that its influence, in terms of poetics, continues to spread and remains ever-fresh, not only in Vietnam but in many countries around the world.

Source: https://baothainguyen.vn/van-hoa/202503/tho-sieu-thuc-khong-xa-la-b0d23f5/