Thơ Mai Văn Phấn trên tạp chí EASTLIT số 6/2014

30/05/2014

Thơ Mai Văn Phấn trên tạp chí EASTLIT số 6/2014

http://www.eastlit.com/eastlit-june-2014/
(Ảnh bìa: chân dung MVP do Nguyễn Quang Thiều chụp tại Hàn Quốc, 12/2010)

maivanphan.vn: Các bài thơ được chọn từ các tập thơ sau để dịch sang Anh ngữ:

Thuốc đắng/ Bitter Potion (Giọt nắng - Hội Liên hiệp VHNT TP. Hải Phòng, 1992);

Lên chùa/ On the Way Up to the Pagoda, Từ nhà mình/ From Our Home, Buông tay cho trời rạng/ Release Your Grasp, Ra vườn chùa xem cắt cỏ/ Grasp and Grass Cutting in the Temple Garde (Vừa sinh ra ở đó - Nxb. Hội Nhà văn, 2013).

Mời Quý Bạn đọc xem bản Việt ngữ tại: http://maivanphan.vn/MaiVanPhan/32/396/780/Cac-tap-Tho/

Current Issue

Please click this Eastlit June 2014 contents link, or click on the picture to take a look at Eastlit June 2014:

Asian poetry, Asian fiction, Asian non-fiction, Asian Art or other creative works from or connected to East and South East Asia.

The Eastlit June 2014 issue is out. Eastlit June 2014 features fiction, poetry and non-fiction. It also includes one more review by Stefanie Field in the Bookworm in Bangkok Column. Eastlit also continues to randomly republish and old submission. All of this Asian literature comes from East Asia or South East Asia or is connected to it. Please also take a look at our unique Eastlit cover design for June 2014 above.

This months cover picture for Eastlit is a picture of Mai Văn Phấn. The photograph is by Nguyễn Quang Thiều. Mai Văn Phấn’s poetry is featured in Eastlit June 2014.

The June 2014 issue of Eastlit introduces literature of east and south east Asian writers. Eastlit June 2014 includes nine writers, poets or artists new to Eastlit. Thanks to all of you and good luck in your future career. A big thanks to all who have featured in Eastlit before, too. The Eastlit June 2014 cover design is by Graham Lawrence.

Go to Eastlit June 2014 Contents

Please also take a few minutes to take a look at the Eastlit Live channel on You Tube.

Eastlit June 2014 Content

Table of Content June 2014:

We hope you enjoy the work in the June 2014 issue of Eastlit as much as we did.

Eastlit Cover: This months cover picture features Mai Văn Phấn. The Eastlit June 2014 cover design is by Graham Lawrence.

Editorial by Nichole Reber.

The Bicentennial by Cesar Polvorosa Jr.

Five Poems by Mai Văn Phấn. The poems are: Bitter Potion, On the Way Up to the Pagoda, From Our Home, Release Your Grasp and Grass Cutting in the Temple Garden. English translation by Lê Đình Nhất-Lang. Edited by Susan Blanshard.

My Neighbor, Mr. Tanaka by Lawrence F. Farrar.

Two Poems by Adonis Enricuso. The poems are: Generous Are the Trees and Seeing Off.

This Too Shall Pass by Iain Maloney.

Four Poems by William Marr. The poems are: Yellow River, Visiting Tu Fu’s Hut on an Early Autumn Day, Taking Pictures of My Wife and a Ninety Pound Baby Male Pandaand Night Flute.

Perfect Present by Andrew J. West.

Perfect Present Art by Vasan Sitthiket. The artwork for the preceding story.

Dark River by Rembrandt Ramilo.

Things I Remember by Suvi Mahonen.

Sunday Tiptoeing by Jamie Wang.

A Veil of Silk by Jared Angel.

Three Poems by Simon Anton Diego Nino Baena. The poems are: Monsoon, Rain andSilence.

What Bothers Me by David E. Owen.

Three Poems by Henrik Hoeg. The poems are: Sentences, The Jury’s Prudence and A Kiss at Street Level.

MBA Abhay by Murzban F Shroff.

Bangkok Editor by Alexander MacDonald is reviewed by Steve Rosse.

The Rescues of Brittan Courvalais by Tom Sheehan.

Daniel Emlyn-Jones is interviewed by Graham Lawrence.

Two Poems by Valerie Wong. Random Republication: The poems The Retournees andUnderstanding. These poems featured in the January 2013 issue of Eastlit.

Asian Godfathers by Joe Studwell is reviewed by Stefanie Field, Eastlit’s own Bookworm in Bangkok, this month. This is the seventh review for Stefanie’s regular Eastlit column.

Contributors: An alphabetical list of all the contributors to the June 2014 issue of Eastlit complete with biographies of all the writers and poets can be found in this section.

Note on Work:

Please note that we publish work as received. We do not edit work for minor errors. We regard these as decisions made by the author. The one exception is that we may work with second language writers to help them say what they want to say.

Please note all work whether writing or pictures remains the copyrighted work of its authors. Everything published on Eastlit. is done so under license from the copyright owners.

Please spend a few minutes to take a look at the Eastlit Live channel on You Tube.

Subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest on upcoming issues, competitions, incentives, contributors and news in general.

The independent offshoot of Eastlit The International Writers’ Group can be found on Google+.

Bitter Potion & Other Poems

by Mai Văn Phấn

English translation by Lê Đình Nhất-Lang
Edited by Susan Blanshard

Bitter Potion

(for Ngọc Trâm)

The fever is burning you on its pyre
I become ash too
The bitter potion cannot wait any more
Holding your hand
I pour
My grief into the empty bowl…

O’ daughter! As the mist falls
My hardship arches across the cold night
And for those frail flowers
To give off scent requires bitter roots.
Sweat becomes callused hands
Spring pours into the medicine bowl
My old age weeps with mute tears
While truth bursts out for no reason.
I wonder what you are eating in your dream
I put the bowl on the window
When you grow up to my age now
At the bottom of the bowl
there may still be a storm.

On the Way Up to the Pagoda

As I climb up the slope to the pagoda gate
Your face suddenly appears as Kwan Yin

Carrying a brown sac
Long neck, slack robe, white ring…
Many halos

Under a clear bright sky
In my mind’s eye, I bend down low

My body is empty
I know only the dry knocking of a rattle
… Om Mani Padme Hum

Winds rise among thorny bushes along the road
I hear the clamour of wild animals running deep in the forest
And the cracking of branches breaking.

From Our Home

You gather things according to their seasons
a bunch of grapefruit flowers for autumn
plums for spring

We are the pulse of air, deep abyss, breasts of soil
we choose warm places to set our furniture
uncluttered places to put our tables and chairs

We drop our worries at the dinner table
with chopsticks we pick vegetables from the field afar
the fish bites on the bait inside our clay pot

We love the footprints near the rice stubble
deep wells, streams and rivers, ponds and puddles

Don’t sit in the room too long
go out into the field, out to the river bank
where leaves grow green and fish wriggle

Bite on fresh pineapple or sweet orange segment
and let juice drop on brown soil.

Release Your Grasp

You dream of a boat
Floating in it
You can see to the bottom
Imagine I am coming near

A light beam from an asteroid
A canopy of tall trees, stars
Break apart when the boat steers

I imagine myself
Holding your hand
Tucking your blanket
Fondling each lock of your hair

You can rest assured
For the boat has been tightly fastened to shore
When currents flow

Here’s a row of bollards
Tight ropes
Taut muscles
Robust arms
I hold my breath
Firmly and fully
Immobilized…

You still dream of guarding the boat
And of waking up to pour moonlight into dawn.

II.

You can’t sleep under a shaking canopy
A twig has just fallen onto the sheet-metal roof
The sound of a broken fruit rolling on the old tiled floor

The raging wind breaks any water surface
A path stretches out to grasp this skirt of forest

Your eyes open into the deep night as the furnace glows bright
Swelling with the aromas of grilled corn and glutinous rice
The sound of boiling water in your memory
Reverberates until nearly morning

Trying to lie flat next to the bed’s edge
You hold your breath waiting for a quiet moment
Embracing an invisible dove
You wait until the earth becomes peaceful
And release your grasp for it to dawn.

III.

Flowers glisten in the rain
When you miss me
Leaves grow dark green

When you call me under the rosewood* tree
You have been crying
Because the rain water is too clear
The tree’s canopy lays under too vast a sky
This year’s blooming season is so different

A know a dragonfly
On its flight keeps
Images of flowers in its eyes

In this peaceful morning
The tree stub has turned the other way

Restless
And numb in the rain
Fingers
And calves are snow-white.

IV.

Swimming only ten meters from shore
I am afraid of drowning
And getting lost deep inside the ocean

The blue waves this afternoon are furious
Flashing their blades of water high
Wild in their menacing beauty

I want to send many wishes
And my desire for freedom
Into the weather forecasts void

I sit on a sandy beach
Filled with happiness
As I watch the purple flowers from afar
Bow down
Trembling in the wind.

A narrow stream of light on that paved road is an infinitely deep doorway leading to our past lives.
In a previous life you and I were a pair of water snakes slithering through grass into a lake, swimming together side by side. The tides that swept the foothills, left their mark through a thousand years. Two raging dinosaurs in a hot desert. A pair of eagles mating while free-falling in the air. Two braided trees amidst a storm. Thunder and lightning struck and collapsed a summit and left a sunset burn…
Here comes the chariot of autumn. The grinding sounds of chain wheels on windy tree tops. Torrents of tiers of leaves falling.
My chest jolts as if trying to withhold an explosive shell, a drop of water, a flower bud on that paved road alight.

_______
* A valuable wood tree, with clusters of white flowers blooming in March and April in Hanoi