Summer 1965 arrived early. Our Literature class, Batch 6, graduated amidst air raid sirens and the deafening roar of anti-aircraft artillery. Just four years earlier, on a bright, sunny autumn day, we had met for the first time in the large lecture hall on Le Thanh Tong Street, in a festive atmosphere filled with dreams of peaceful times. Now, everything was so far away. The previous year, two-thirds of the class had graduated early to go to the front lines for wartime duties. Only 12 of us remained, including Diep Minh Tuyen, Lu Huy Nguyen, Huu Nhuan, Hoang Lai Giang, Ma Giang Lan, Nguyen Trong Dinh… and myself.
One rainy June afternoon, we finished defending our graduation theses. The Me Tri dormitory was deserted. Principal Nguy Nhu Kon Tum had driven his Jeep all the way there to encourage us. After the defense, Dinh and I sat quietly on the steps, sharing our thoughts about entering adulthood. Two months earlier, Dinh had been informed he would be taking on a special job; we guessed he would be working as a war correspondent in the South. Dinh and I went back to Dinh's hometown on the other side of the Hong River, a village with vibrant red kapok flowers and lush green cornfields. Dinh went home to say goodbye to his grandmother, who was over 80 years old, but then everything was temporarily put on hold, and we waited again. In early July of that year, graduating students from the Literature Department, along with their professors, went on a field trip to the front lines of Zone IV. We set off on a sweltering summer afternoon. Our group included Nguyen Trong Dinh, Lu Huy Nguyen, Ma Giang Lan, and myself. We didn't have bicycles, so we formed a group and walked. The group ahead by bicycle included Huu Nhuan, Hoang Lai Giang… We arrived in Ninh Binh at night right during an American air raid. Cluster bombs exploded continuously, artillery fire lit up the sky, the bridge had collapsed, so we crossed the river in small boats and then walked 60 kilometers, sleeping in the coffee forest for only a short time. Nguyen Trong Dinh walked very well, while Ma Giang Lan and I often fell behind. Another bombing raid after crossing Ham Rong Bridge. We went to Ma Giang Lan's house in Nam Ngan at dawn. On our first day in Thanh Hoa town, we met the teachers and were assigned to the team of Nguyen Kim Dinh and Do Hong Chung. The group also included Nguyen Van Khoa, Chu Xuan Dien, Hong Sam, and Le Huy Anh from class 7. That very next day, American planes bombed Thanh Hoa town very fiercely. We were only a few hundred meters from where the bombs were falling. Nguyen Trong Dinh calmly smoked a cigarette and told me, "Who knows if the bombs will hit us?" We were ordered to return to the Do Len bridge, which was a key target of American bombing. We arrived at Do Len after midnight the following day. The broken bridge had been repaired, so the American planes were bombing fiercely. It was a rainy night, and we slept under a truck. Teacher Dinh, Teacher Khoa, and Dinh went to contact the local authorities. In a region riddled with bomb craters, there was still stir-fried pho and herbal tea. Perhaps later, Nguyen Trong Dinh's poem "Homeland Herbal Tea" also originated from the emotions of that rainy night. We stayed in Ha Ngoc commune for ten days. Throughout the night, American planes roared. Knowing each person's personality, Nguyen Kim Dinh assigned me the responsibility of gathering materials and writing a preliminary draft of the history of this resistance village. But to make it easy for the people to understand and remember, Dinh and Chung decided to simultaneously explain the history of this rural area through poetry. He chose Dinh for this interesting and arduous task. Thus, a "technology" with two "stages" was formed. I would write prose and then immediately send it to Dinh to turn into poetry. Being a very intelligent and emotional person, Dinh immediately understood the soul of the lines I wrote. I will always remember the passage about the shape and geography of Ha Ngoc commune. In just ten minutes, Dinh wrote a very charming opening stanza from my entire page:
Oh, Ha Ngoc, my heroic homeland, where mountains stand tall on both sides like a fortress, and a green river murmurs softly, with boats sailing up and down—where could be more beautiful?In this way, Dinh transformed the preliminary history of the commune into 400 verses of poetry, rich in imagery and profound in artistry. The members of the group, all knowledgeable in poetry, praised Dinh highly. I remember one night when many villagers gathered, under the dim light of oil lamps, Nguyen Kim Dinh, on behalf of the group, read the history of this region in both prose and poetry until well past midnight, deeply moving everyone; no one wanted to leave. That autumn felt endless. Returning from the front lines, on peaceful afternoons without gunfire, we often gathered at Xuan Dieu's house. Nguyen Trong Dinh, Huu Nhuan, and their friends discussed poetry, newspapers, and war-related topics. Nguyen Trong Dinh began compiling his works at the age of 17. At that time, the draft of the poem...
Hometown herbal teaIt also took shape, but differed from the later original version. I remember the opening sentence:
One night, walking through the ancient forest in the falling rain, a tattered cloak barely covered me. Water trickled down my lips, I sipped it drop by drop.Later, I was very annoyed because, during one of my printings of Nguyen Trong Dinh's poems, some editor had omitted the middle line, ruining the soul of a beautiful stanza. Then we embarked on our lives! Dinh became a war correspondent for the Nhan Dan newspaper, Huu Nhuan for the Van Nghe Weekly, Lu Huy Nguyen and Hoang Lai Giang for the Van Hoa Publishing House… Ma Giang Lan and I stayed at the university and became professors. On October 10, 1965, the anniversary of the liberation of the capital, Dinh quietly saw me off as I returned to the mountains and forests to evacuate with the Faculty of Literature. During the years I was away from home, Dinh stayed in my small room in a quiet alley. Dinh wrote poetry continuously during his time as a resident correspondent in Ha Bac. Every time we met, we were in a hurry, but instead of the usual "tea and drinks" sessions, Dinh would often read me his new poems. The final draft of the poem "Homeland's Vối Water" was shown to me by Định in 1967. In the spring of the Year of the Dragon (1968), Định asked me to come to Hanoi to say goodbye before he left. I couldn't make it back in time. The farewell in my small room was recorded by Hữu Nhuận on a reel-to-reel tape on Xuân Diệu's old tape recorder. His smile was still innocent, his farewells and messages to friends were the same as before, but no one thought that it was the last time Định would leave. In late autumn of 1968, Định passed away on the banks of the Thu Bồn River as a war correspondent on the Da Nang front. The person who represented us in bidding farewell to Định later returned from the battlefield and told us about it was a literature student – Trần Mai Hạnh, now the editor of the Weekly News. Every time I remember Nguyễn Trọng Định, I still picture him through the poem "Homeland's Vối Water". For many years, my desk was adorned with a wooden paperweight depicting Pushkin and the poem: "And people will forever remember my name." It was a memento from Dinh's last year of school. Later, everywhere, even on long journeys, when I remembered my friends, the "Quoc Voi" (a type of herbal tea from my hometown) always remained a cherished memory, a reminder of a journalist, a soldier, a poet, and a loyal and kind-hearted friend.
