Tet is a harvest season
+ Speaking of Tet poetry - a specialty on the Spring Edition tray, what verses and poems do people often think of that are most suitable to welcome a new year, poet Nguyen Si Dai?
- Poetry in particular, and art in general, are indispensable in Tet newspapers. That is the humanistic content, nurturing people and national culture. Any politics , any current events are temporary. True politics must cherish art even more because art is true politics. The literary and artistic part of Tet newspapers will be lively, fresh lyrics so that each of us can enter the new year with a cheerful soul, loving life more. From loving people, loving life with aspiration "two arms like two wings flying up" people will be able to do everything... As for me personally, there is nothing worth mentioning. If only calculating royalties, then publishing a Tet newspaper article, the royalties are four or five times that of a poem, but I still like to publish Tet poems, it is luxurious, it is very happy. I am grown up but still boast about having a poem published in Tet newspapers. I have many friends who are editors, so publishing poetry is not really difficult, but the difficulty is that thoughtful, sad, and good poems are not published during Tet, so I can't publish much, and my family's pot of banh chung is rarely full...
Poet and journalist Nguyen Si Dai.
+ I see that artists in the past often tell each other that every time Tet is celebrated, poets and writers are busy with phone calls from newspaper offices asking for poems and ordering poems to be published in Tet newspapers, sir?
- That's right. In the 80s and 90s, writing poetry and articles for Tet was a harvest season, modestly "earning a pot of banh chung". (Thinking back, I feel sorry because back then we were so poor, there was nothing harder than plowing through words!). One year, Nguyen Hong Thai and Tran Thu Hang, a close friend of my wife and I, wrote four million in royalties for Tet, my wife and I were very impressed. At that time, publishing in newspapers, and publishing in Tet newspapers was very difficult. There were still many famous people, but the number of newspapers was small, only one or two electronic pages. The criteria for choosing Tet poems were correct but had its own irony: Poetry had to be chosen from famous people (at that time there were still many poets of the New Poetry Movement), had to have enough topics according to the anniversaries, regional structures, the poems had to be beautiful, cheerful, and on the right topic...
It is true that Tet requires a lot of "hunting" for people and articles. Many years of being an editor, contributing to the production of the literature page on the Tet Nhan Dan issue, many memories. The requirement is to have a national level, to "compete" (healthily) that one's page must be better, at least equal to other major newspapers. Poetry must have To Huu, Xuan Dieu, Che Lan Vien, Huy Can... Poets Khuong Huu Dung, Huy Can are enthusiastic, even very enthusiastic, but asking for poems from Nguyen Khoa Diem, Huu Thinh is very difficult, because many newspapers ask for them, and they are very self-respecting. Tran Dang Khoa is a friend, but many times he promises but still doesn't have any, because he also believes that if there is no new poetry, no good poetry, then it will not be published. Promises are out of respect, but if they don't "give birth" to something, then it's a given. Short stories must have Kim Lan, Ma Van Khang, Do Chu... Sometimes I order them, but another newspaper comes and takes them away!
I respectfully send articles to any newspaper that respects me.
+ You said, how many years of being an editor, contributing to the production of the literature page of the Tet Nhan Dan issue, there are many memories. Surely the job of an editor when selecting poems to publish in the Tet newspaper is also quite interesting, sir?
- The happiness of a literary editor is to get to know the great poets and writers that he admires. During his lifetime, poet Khuong Huu Dung often came to Nhan Dan Newspaper (his house was nearby, at 36 Phan Boi Chau Street). Whenever poetry was mentioned, he would talk endlessly. After seeing him off, it was normal for him to talk for an hour or two at the gate. At that time, I was lying on the table, finished putting on the rice cooker, and when I saw him in, the rice cooker was burnt, and the table was also burnt (the stove was made of Soviet sewing wire placed on the desk)... I learned from Uncle Dung how to write poetry, choose words, especially quatrains. For example, in the poem "Con Son", where the poet expressed his feelings like Nguyen Trai.
Go to the top of Con Son to find Nguyen Trai
Above the head is a blue sky
Chessboard of world affairs, the pieces do not move.
But see around me the storm
He was very fond of the word “noi” in “noi bao dong” (talking about the injustice of Nguyen Trai in Con Son). The poem was printed, everyone praised it as good. But on the second day of Tet, he took the trouble to come find me. “Bad, very bad, my dear. I found this word that is much better… It must be “day co” – But raising the storm around me” . It was definitely better, the poem was more moving, it showed the sinister, dangerous side of the human heart better! When he found the word “day”, the joy shook his teeth, chattering, even now, after 40 years I still feel it. I just understood what “two sentences take three years”, “poetry is a prayer to the gods” meant… He taught me that after finishing a poem, even if it was printed, even if it was twenty or thirty years later, I should still read it again, and still revise it until the very end.
With such a good grasp of words, on the second day of Tet that year, he not only showed off the words “noi” and “day” but also showed off the first poem written on the first day of Tet, which included the line “Tomorrow morning, the first day of the Lunar New Year, the house has not yet received guests”. He said, at first he wrote “thầu” and “chua” which was much better because no one had used it yet, and it was true that it was “chua”, because after writing the poem, what if people came? He just kept saying that, but that line of poetry made me feel sorry for him, suddenly remembering the line of poetry by Meng Hao Nhien: “Bat tai minh chu khi/ Da benh co nhan so”; he was retired, old; even if he was talented, not many people came anymore. Only he was still intoxicated with poetry, holding on to his lonely loyalty to poetry “Only wishing for a lifetime when closing my eyes - to have a magic spell is enough to be happy” (Eighty already) when the whole era was about to enter a period of intoxication with money… And poetry from that day on also gradually lost its value…
Speaking of Mr. Pham Tien Duat, he is always enthusiastic and sincere. The editor is the one who likes to read the poems first, to hear the author's thoughts through each poem. In the 80s, the Da River was a great project, so poems about the Da River were indispensable in the Tet newspaper. Reading the article "Love Speaks on the Da River", about a mechanic, a soldier who changed careers, over 50 years old but still passionately in love, I wondered how he could write the sentence: "A person in love is like a tree in bloom/ That mechanic is restless, I know very well/ His eyes are always smiling and his words are always sweet/ I broke a tea cup, he didn't blame me" .
He said, the story of the mechanic loving the material girl in Song Da was true, the story of him breaking the teacup was true; but he had to get that feeling of love from his heart, not just from observing the mechanic… Was he in love? That is, having an affair? Love is love, there is no “external”. What kind of love doesn’t come from within. So it’s “internal” and why “external”? When I came to the line “The fire of love keeps burning, keeps kindling in the midst of time”, I asked, why didn’t he remove the word “keep kindling” so that the verse would be “The fire of love keeps burning in the midst of time”, wouldn’t it be easier to read, wouldn’t it be better? He was silent for a moment, then said: That’s it, my dear, love burns out and then rekindles, it’s very difficult, not easy to have…
That’s how poetry editing is like. But it’s not all about the benefits and the fun. There are also great poets who, because their poems were not published in the Tet newspaper, were still angry for nearly ten years, and then they finally calmed down…
+ Thinking from the past to the present, Poetry is always an indispensable part of Tet publications... Of course, the vibrant flavor of a time seems to have "gone away somewhat", don't you think?
- When I was young, every time I wrote a poem that I was satisfied with, I would often jump up and shout to myself, “Oh, I admire myself so much”, allowing myself a few months to play around, not having to do anything and wishing that I could write one or two good poems each year, then life would be worth living, worth being satisfied with! If I compare the past with the present, I see that today’s Tet newspapers do not pay much attention to the quality of the literature page in the Tet newspaper. Do they pay more attention to upward orientation and advertising? As for me, in the past I hoped and tried to have my articles published in the Literature and Arts Newspaper, Nhan Dan Newspaper… in general in the big newspapers. Now, if any newspaper respects me, I respectfully send my articles and think that good articles will be well received and appreciated by readers wherever they are published. And I don’t think much about royalties anymore, so my creativity is more free.
+ Thank you very much!
Ha Van (Implementation)
Source
Comment (0)