Simple, warm and full of scientific spirit - that was the feeling of those who attended the discussion on the poetry collection "Luc Thap" by Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Ba Thanh organized by the Faculty of Literature in mid-June. On the sidelines of the discussion, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Thanh Hung (Director of the Center for Research and Application of Culture and Arts, University of Social Sciences and Humanities) shared many interesting information.
The publication of the poetry collection “Luc Thap” by Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Ba Thanh seems to have caused a surprise to many readers and friends and colleagues at the Faculty of Literature? The poetry collection is a summary of 60 years of a person’s life and also demonstrates the sincerity and willingness to open up without hesitation or worry of a Literature teacher at a very “ripe” age?
For many people, “Luc Thap” is surprising. As for me, because we are friends, I guessed that the sixty-year-old poet would have to publish “it”. This is a collection of poems whose initial motivation was to express personal concerns, to seek sympathy and sharing with friends and colleagues. Thanks to that pure creative motivation, the collection of poems does not bear the mark of a practicing subject, although its author himself is an expert in lyric poetry, the initiator of the theory of “Poetic Thinking” in literary research and criticism. Perhaps when writing poetry, the author put aside the theoretical part, hid his scientific personality, and let the poetry resonate naturally. When sad, his poems are melancholy, when happy, his poems are shrill. His poems are as natural as bamboo, when they meet the wind, they must sway like that! Many close friends who understood the life and career of Mr. Ba Thanh encouraged him to publish. Especially his second wife who loved his poetry very much (but still not sure which she loved first, poetry or people) "forced" him to publish.
The cover of the book of poems has a hardwood tree trunk bursting with a cluster of flowers, which at first glance look like sim flowers, but according to the author, it is lim flowers. That flower only blooms once every 60 years. The author said so, but I didn’t believe it (because I’m very ignorant about wood and botany in general). However, when flowers are in poetry, everything is just a symbol. The book of poems is like the “ripeness” that has come, the choking blooming of an old lim tree after 60 years of accumulating the milk of life.
Although it is a scientific discussion, it seems that people see more than the emotional sharing of friends and colleagues with the author? It seems that there is a lot of generational sympathy for the things the author expressed in "Luc Thap"?
Many people share the same opinion: “we come to people more than to poetry”. People come to the discussion first of all because they respect the person and character of Mr. Ba Thanh. And in the discussion, discussing poetry is also to discuss the teacher’s life, his way of life and his way of thinking.
For example, Associate Professor Dr. Huu Dat, a poet of a “different style” but with the same situation… two wives, when speaking expressed his admiration for author Ba Thanh. He admired because he had never seen anyone who could write poems praising both “two volumes” in one book of poetry. This was something he would never dare to dream of. Professor Bui Viet Thang, a famous literary critic for a long time, spoke as a fellow faculty member (General Literature Department K14). He remembered that in 1972, Professor Ba Thanh and Professor Pham Gia Lam had to drop out of school and go to Baku, the Soviet Union to learn rocket shooting: “That was strange, because how could students studying social sciences shoot accurately? They brought the rockets back but never fired them, it turned out that all the American planes had returned home, there was nothing left to shoot. The rockets arrived too late, there was no chance to demonstrate their talent. But today, with this Seminar, Associate Professor Ba Thanh fired a real rocket. A rocket in poetry.”… Of course, such jokes are not just a spice for the Seminar, not a side story. Those stories are valuable information for readers to decode the symbols in Ba Thanh’s poetry. Not knowing about his trip to Ba Cu, how could I understand the poem he wrote: I hold an AK in my hand / With the price of ten tons of rice… I dream that the next time I come back to visit / I will sell the AK to buy a rice mill / Sell the radar system to build a school / Sell the Sam-3 fruit to build a thousand-bed hospital.
The topic of the discussion was “The Luc Thap poetry collection and the inspiration of private life and world affairs in contemporary Vietnamese poetry”. So at the discussion, how did the experts evaluate the position and role of private life and world affairs poetry in today's life?
On the occasion of the publication of the poetry collection, our Faculty of Literature discussed poetry about private life and world affairs. This can be considered a new genre of poetry, a new type of poetry that emerged after the era of revolutionary poetry. War and revolution in our country turned poetry into a weapon, into the common voice of the community's will. The epic sound in poetry in peacetime subsided. From the height of the ramparts, people returned to face the worries of daily life. Poetry followed.
Actually, this is not a strange genre of poetry. It has appeared since ancient times, even in medieval poetry. Even in the inner palace of official literature, the inspiration of private life and worldly affairs was not suppressed. Nguyen Trai's national language poetry, Nguyen Du's Chinese poetry, Ho Xuan Huong's poetry are all poems of private life and worldly affairs. It's just that for a long time, due to war and revolution, we have become accustomed to "public life" poetry, so when poetry returns to private life, we find it strange.
It is true that poetry about personal life and world affairs is becoming a mainstream in Vietnamese poetry today. That stream can flow parallel to other streams in an author. That inspiration can be interwoven with other inspirations in a poem or a collection of poems. Nguyen Duy’s poetry is a typical case. The important thing is whether the personal life becomes a common story for everyone, the self becomes the we, or whether writing forever is still just a story of fragments about the corners of the house, the quiet alleys of his hometown.
Some people say that this is not a "classy" line of poetry and if not careful, the words and ideas in the poem will become "plain"?
True poetry is poetry that does not accept classification: noble/vile. For a long time, the art public has turned its back on the concept of conventional aesthetics. Poetry and art in general that are made “noble” or moralistic are self-destructive.
Poetry of personal life and current affairs, in terms of form, is close to folk poetry, with everyday, rustic speech, not elaborate in form, not too rhetorical. It prefers natural speech, close to the language of everyday life. Writing about his father, author Luc Thap summarized as follows:Half a life teaching Chinese characters / When the revolution comes, worry about worldly affairs / Party members dare not rest / Secretaries, Team Leaders... stand exposed in the fields.
The rumor that Ba Thanh's poetry is simple was probably inspired by the common advice of poet Vuong Trong. The famous poet Vuong Trong - a friend of author Ba Thanh (who played chess all year round but could not beat teacher Thanh) - said: "Reading 'Luc Thap', I was troubled by two concepts: Nom na and Simplicity. So should poetry be nom na or simple? Poetry that reaches simplicity must be the poetry of masters, because if it is too elaborate, it is no longer poetry. Poetry must reach the essence, that is simplicity but profound, profound, simplicity as the result of a distillation process. The boundary between simplicity and nom na is very fragile. Writing too plainly is no longer poetry.”.
Mr. Vuong Trong spoke very deeply, speaking with the way of thinking of someone in the profession. He had a far-fetched piece of advice for the author of “Luc Thap”, but I think the colloquialism in “Luc Thap” is intentionally colloquial. It lies in the author’s poetic concept.
How do you evaluate the upcoming trend of personal and current poetry? In order for personal and current poetry to go beyond the need to express the author’s pure emotions and become a good and valuable work, what factors do you think need to be ensured?
In fact, the inspiration of private life - world affairs is just a way of naming, to identify the change in the main sound in Vietnamese poetry since the war, especially since the Doi Moi period. As for poetry of any era, if it is good poetry, it is poetry that starts from private life, from the individual to the general, to knock on the hearts of everyone. Therefore, predicting about poetry about world affairs is difficult and perhaps a bit redundant. Because that is like the law of poetic creation. World affairs and private life are considered natural attributes of poetry.
Of course, to make poetry about personal life and worldly affairs live forever, the poet himself must live fully with all the joys and sorrows of the people and the country today. Only by knowing the pain of his fellow human beings and the nation can his own pain become a common pain. He writes about his own things and turns them into a common statement of the collective and the community. Che Lan Vien advised his friends and himself very well about this. Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Ba Thanh has a whole thesis on Che Lan Vien's poetry.
It is clear that the collection “Luc Thap” by Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Ba Thanh is loved by everyone. What do you personally think is the most valuable of the collection of poems?
Mr. Thanh's poetry begins to reach simplicity. The most valuable thing is that this is a poetic product that proves that "the poet is as graceful as his poetry". His poetry is as he lives his life. Mr. Thanh is optimistic, Mr. Thanh is humorous, the pain in real life appears in his poetry. Many poems are also very serious, but most of them are just funny poems. The most valuable thing in this collection "Luc Thap" is sincerity. The beauty in his poetry is straightforwardness. The beauty radiates from truth to innocence. That's why some people, when they first open the poetry page, are startled to think that this is a family album, because in the poems are also portraits of his parents, his two grandchildren, and his son's wedding. Reading the poems, they realize that these are photos with the function of... illustration. For him, anything that has informational value: poetry, photos, parallel sentences are all poetic, and can live together in the text.
The Faculty of Literature is quite famous for its many amateur poets with their own unique personalities. But it seems that no one has any intention of going “professional”?
I would like to correct this immediately. The opinion about amateur poetry comes from the advice of Associate Professor Tran Ngoc Vuong. Mr. Vuong wants Mr. Thanh to reach the level of professional poetry. But in my opinion, that advice is… foolish. At sixty years old, “competing” with professionalism is foolish, and can even be rude. Moreover, this is not the place to professionalize. When teaching poetry, one should only “play” with poetry. Amateurism in “Luc Thap” is a deliberate amateurism. Poetry for Mr. Ba Thanh is just a game.
Twenty years ago, when the total number of members of the Vietnam Writers Association was about 600, 25% were alumni of Hanoi National University. The Faculty of Literature was a nursery for poets. Graduates who stayed at the university to teach and research often had to put aside their artistic qualities, giving priority to scientific thinking and the responsibility of growing up as teachers. Therefore, the pen names in poetry from Hoang Xuan Nhi, Phan Cu De, Ha Minh Duc, to Nguyen Huy Hoang, Tran Ngoc Vuong, Nguyen Hung Vi, Dao Duy Hiep, Huu Dat, Nguyen Ba Thanh... when appearing were all accepted from a different criterion. Not professional or amateur poets, but the poetry of masters.
Furthermore, as the topic of the discussion clearly stated, this is a scientific activity. Many poets and scientists from the Institute of Literature, from cultural agencies, and colleagues and friends, during the discussion, "resentfully" left because they were not given priority to speak. The discussion was too lively and engaging. Noon came at some point. The chair had to interrupt, making an appointment with the audience on the occasion of the author's 80th or 100th birthday. The poetry collection of Associate Professor Nguyen Ba Thanh has indeed raised many issues of modern Vietnamese poetry, stirring up a fresh academic and cultural atmosphere.