Story 1. Running away from diseases
Translation by Joseph Dovinh

Mother took my brothers and sisters and I into hiding
in sixty-three. Nowhere far, mother took us
to an aunt’s house three streets away. Mother
said: let’s sleep over at the lonely aunt’s, I Continue reading →

Translated from the Vietnamese by Alec G. Schachner (in The Purification Festival in April,
third edition)

Sunshine begins to warm the hills of April
starting earlier than many centuries past
when the ocean had yet to awake
earlier than all the memory of the elder ceremony priests. Continue reading →

In this difficult beginning
Only a beckoning, stranger
Than that of a sea-cobra Continue reading →

Ginang
Pagalaung ginang pagalaung ginang pagalaung
The drums thunder
Pagalaung pagalaung pagalaung Continue reading →

Living means gratefulness – gratitude is
beyond the horizon of calculation
gratefulness makes us grown up Continue reading →

I could not choose to be a child of the President of France
or a grandchild in direct line of the King of Brunei Continue reading →

Skin and bones
Sad eyes and smokes of tobacco
Blank sheets of paper and white nights
Swim across the hidden current of water Continue reading →

THE PURIFICATION FESTIVAL IN APRIL
(A long poem, extracts)
*
… over there, over there where home is
April is in the Purification ceremony
How could you come back with me and stand by the river’s bank tonight?
In painful joy
Loudly sing the water’s eulogy Continue reading →

THE HOLLOW DAYS
Day 8: You are born only once

Oh Panduranga Panduranga, why no other places than Panduranga?
I was a bridegroom in Panduranga twice Continue reading →