Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry

I'm pasting in below a BBC news item regarding a new acceptance by the Vietnamese government of poets who were suppressed in the 1950s. Because they called for more freedom of expression, they lost their privileged positions as members of the powerful Writers Association; some were imprisoned; and their works were banned from publication. Poems by two of the poets named, Tran Dan and Hoang Cam, will appear in the anthology Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry, edited and translated by Nguyen Do and me, to be published by Milkweed Editions in Spring 2008.

Poems by nine of the twenty-one poets included in the forthcoming anthology can be found in New American Writing 23 (2005): Dang Dinh Hung, Van Cao, Hoang Hung (who was held in prison and reeducation camps, 1978-1983, on the suspicion that he possessed a banned Hoang Cam manuscript), Thanh Thao, Nguyen Do, Nhat Le, Nguyen Quang Thieu, Vi Thuy Linh, and Nguyen Duy. The link is www.newamericanwriting.com.

Vietnam recognises jailed poets
By Bill Hayton BBC News, Hanoi

The Vietnamese government has announced that it is to award a prestigious prize to four poets - 50 years after they were imprisoned and their works banned. Hoang Cam, Le Dat, Phung Quan and Tran Dan were part of a movement which criticised life under communism but which was crushed in the late 1950s. The four, two of whom are now dead, published their work in two magazines. The awards seem to be part of a wider effort by Vietnam to reconcile difficult aspects of the past.

The two magazines, Giai Pham (Works of Beauty) and Nhan Van (Humanism), were launched shortly after Vietnam gained independence from France. However this brief period of openness, in which they called for freedom of expression and debated government policies, ended two years later as the Communist Party, under the influence of China, suppressed dissent.

Now the Communist Party is once again experimenting with greater openness, in an effort to repair relations with some of its critics. It has also given a Buddhist organisation permission to hold services in the next few weeks intended to promote reconciliation between former enemies.

Local media coverage of the decision to award the State Prize to the four poets has also been interesting because of the frank way in which it described how the poets were sent to re-education camps after calling for more freedom.

One of the two surviving poets, Hoang Cam, 86, was quoted as welcoming the prize - but said it was a pity it had not happened earlier. "The prize is beautiful, but late," he said.

To see the story in its original context, use the link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/6403609.stm

Subtext Collective

At the invitation of guest curator Curtis Bonney, Maxine Chernoff and I recently returned from a trip to Seattle to read in the Subtext series at the Richard Hugo House. The hall was full and we enjoyed both the reading and the visit with Curtis, his wife Sonnet, who teaches at UW, and their daughter Ava. Seattle has always been known as a book town, so we checked out Elliott Bay Bookstore, where they have lots of good poetry in English translation--I found three different selected poems of Akhmatova and bought the edition translated by Judith Hemschemeyer--but a surprising, almost programmatic lack of works by those of the innovative camp. All I could find was a single volume each by Jean Day and Susan Howe. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to Seattle's only all-poetry bookstore, Open Books, because it was closed at the time. But we did meet the owners, John Marshall and Christine Deaver, on the night of the reading. The store apparently doesn't trade online, but the link is http://www.openpoetrybooks.com.

The Subtext Collective first came together in 1994-1995 due to the efforts of Nico Vassilakis, co-editor of Sub Rosa Press, and Ezra Mark, editor of Vortext Press. Its advisory board now also includes Jeanne Heuving, Bryant Mason, Robert Mittenthal, C.E. Putnam, and in the summer months, Joseph Donahue.

Had the pleasure of meeting John and Roberta Olson for the first time, after much experience of reading and publishing John's work in New American Writing. Also ran into Doug Nufer, who said he was once mistaken for me on a Nufer/Hoover soundalike basis. Three poets including Lindsay Hill drove all the way from Portland to attend the reading: four hours on a cold, wet day. It was nice to meet Lindsay after having published a sizeable portion of his book-length work Contango. Good conversation with Jeanne Heuving and Bryant Mason, who stayed late at the party. Jeanne is working on a study relating to love and beloved form in Pound, H.D., Duncan, and others. Bryant is employed by Microsoft, located on the other side of Lake Washington, a worker in code both day and night. And aren't we all. . .

When reading in Seattle, it's also possible to investigate the Spare Room series in Portland, run by a collective consisting of David Abel, Maryrose Larkin, Mark Owens, Chris Piuma, and Lindsay Hill.

Sarah Mangold, who edits Bird Dog and studied with Myung Mi Kim at SFSU, gave us a copy of its latest issue, the 8th: work by Elizabeth Treadwell, Joshua Beckman, Curtis Bonney, Tomaz Salamun, Kevin Magee, Jennifer Karmin, Sheila Murphy & Michelle Greenblatt, Chad Sweeney, Roberta Olson, and others, as well as a series of color collages by Chad Horn and Nico's long work on grid, "The Text Develops and Loses Time in the Reading of It." The cover of this issue reminds me of some early issues of OINK! except that Bird Dog is more professionally printed and designed. To save money in the early 70s, we used blank ink on colored paper and printed the issues ourselves on an A.B. Dick table-top offset press. Nobody in the apartment below ours ever complained. The major lesson we learned as printers was never to print in high humidity (unless you have air-conditioning and of course we didn't). Our double issue OINK! 9/10 had a photo of a tattooed man's man that I got from a tattoo parlor on Belmont Avenue, when only one parlor existed on the entire North Side. Placed all three prime colors in the ink tray, which blended to create a few more in the printing process. Our process was "stank" and therefore, it seems now, something like the real thing. Had to scratch my head when, out photographing gravestones, I discovered A. B. Dick's gravesite in a little cemetery along Sheridan Road, between Chicago and Evanston.