Luong Khac Thanh: Writing to give thanks for life

(Baonghean) - I have known the name Luong Khac Thanh for quite a long time, at that time, I happened to copy one of his poems published in a literary newspaper. Then, the round earth brought me back to Nghe An, where I had the opportunity to meet many poets that I loved and knew.

Write to thank life

And I also had the opportunity to meet the author of this poem that I copied in my notebook when I was a student. I was quite surprised to know that these sad and nostalgic poems were written by a person working in finance (Luong Khac Thanh, former specialist of Nghe An Department of Finance).

And on a sunny morning by the Goong Lake with the autumn breeze, sitting with his literary friends, Luong Khac Thanh showed off his newly written poem by... singing it. He said that when he wrote this poem, he recited it in a melody. He innocently tapped his skinny fingers on the wooden table of the coffee shop and sang. The song - the poem talks about the sunny and windy Southern region, a certain land that he passed by, and felt deeply indebted to it even though it was just a passing encounter. That's it, just a passing encounter, Luong Khac Thanh was able to love, to remember, to feel indebted... That's why Luong Khac Thanh lived and wrote as a way to thank this life - even though it had brought many hardships.

Luong Khac Thanh (third from left) with singer Que Thuong and friends during the filming of the song "Truong Bon Letter".

Poet Thach Quy revealed to me that Luong Khac Thanh “has the ability to read faces”! I curiously asked him about the mystery of palm lines, the things that they could tell him about fate. He laughed out loud, explaining to me about things related to intuition, about people and the changes in life, about efforts that will bring about changes, about kindness that will overcome evil… These things are not new, but he said them very simply. Surely he has also gone through many heartbreaks? I asked, he just nodded slightly…

The pain of home

Then, in the intimate stories that followed, Luong Khac Thanh told me about his childhood. A childhood with many hardships on the burning sands of Nghi Duc (formerly Nghi Loc, now Vinh City), but also "full of luck" as he saw it because his father was a Confucian scholar, practiced medicine, valued letters, and often saved money to buy books. The world in each page of the book awakened in him dreams and desires. Later, it urged his steps to go. But the deep love for his homeland, with the endless love for cassava, kept him from returning: "Poor homeland, burning sand under the feet/ The steps never stop, but the return home".

He said that in those old days, the hunger and cold were very “real”. It was like you could touch it, like you could see it, not just feel it. “Gathering sweet potatoes, my feet were all dirty/ But I had not yet overcome the hardships of childhood”. Born in 1954, while still in high school, Luong Khac Thanh joined the army, joining Group 559. After liberation, he continued his studies in the army, then studied at the University of Finance and Accounting, and graduated as a lecturer as a financial officer. In 1987, Luong Khac Thanh changed his major, returned to the province to work at the Department of Finance until he retired. But even when he returned to live in his hometown, the nostalgia in him seemed not to lessen. All of those feelings were imprinted in his poetry.

It can be said that the poems about the homeland are the simplest, most touching and best poems of Luong Khac Thanh - who always admits that he is an "outsider", someone who enters the "poetry game" in an amateurish way. And in the "game" of writing, he has published 2 collections of poems (now he no longer has any of his own poems), that love for the homeland has been named by him in the collection "Village Memories". He said that he wrote to thank life, to thank "A sweet potato with a few eggplants/ Screwing the back of mother, father for a lifetime", to thank "the soul of the homeland/ Where the scrap paper kite returns to childhood", to thank the people who have fallen, as in "Truong Bon Letter" (a poem set to music by musician Le An Tuyen)...

Therefore, Luong Khac Thanh is known to his friends in the literary world not only as a poet. He is also a person with a strong desire to find history, to find the ancient culture of his ancestors. Worried about the old relics that have "disappeared" from the village, he has worked hard to find ways to restore them. Persistently persuading, mobilizing, seeking all kinds of help..., he is one of the people who have contributed to "reviving" the An Hau pagoda relic. In his poems, people still encounter those concerns: "The pagoda yard is also full of worries / The parasol trees are silent among thousands of fallen leaves / The old temple has been demolished / But the stone unicorn still smiles calmly".

Lean on poetry…

Luong Khac Thanh said that he came to poetry very naturally, as a way to record his emotions, since his childhood. For him, “poetry is like the wind”, to cool, to soothe, to share, to comfort… Sometimes it is just to “lull” himself. Therefore, in addition to the homeland poetry section, Luong Khac Thanh also has a section of current affairs poetry that is worth reading, in which he also shares many thoughts.

Luong Khac Thanh said he believed in fate. But in his life, everything happened according to arrangements, according to “assignments”. It seemed that he could not choose or decide anything himself, he joined the army, then followed the army’s assignment to go to school, after graduating he also followed the assignment to go to work…, only coming to poetry seemed to be close to “resisting” the arrangements. But with poetry, he was supported, relied on it to stand up in a life that was not without sadness, uncertainty, and adversity… “I believe that as a poet, one cannot do evil”, Luong Khac Thanh said.

With poetry, he found that he “trained himself to reach beauty, nobility” and more importantly, he was able to express himself. In that whirling “survival dance”, he saw: “The stage came to the magic class/ In the blink of an eye, the wizard turned into a fairy…”, “Everywhere I saw the shape of a haggard person/ Rushing like crazy towards the end of the sunset”. Obviously, he, like many other poets, with his experiences and sensitivities, looked directly at life with those endless collisions, to name the “magic tricks”, to remind himself that: Life is like that, “one void, one color, one shore of dreams”, how to live true to oneself, love and trust the right people, and be tolerant of all. Is it sad? It must be sad: "The world's evil never grows old/ Sadness has taken root and now it has sprouted green", or "Life's games still have to be fun/ Who would have thought that a cup of wine would expose sadness" but then: "Love springs up again, stirring up the human world".

Reading the world in Luong Khac Thanh's poems, I have always encountered a person who is "startled" and questions himself, a person who has gone through storms and experiences, looking back at the past, awakening and taking more cautious and compassionate steps... "The Grave by the Roadside" is such a poem. That was the time the author passed by a grave that folklore said was the grave of a beggar, and could not stop thinking: "Who is the person lying there? The good and evil in this life are still the same", he thought about what was born and lost in life, thought about human fate, thought about himself who "forgot the days of his grandparents' death anniversaries", the carelessness and haste of real people caught up in the cycle of food and clothing, the cycle of illusions... Living while thinking that he had enough strength to forget the past. Living while thinking that he was about to reach the future. Did you know that "Ephemerals on all paths of life/ The sea of ​​​​mulberry trees, the creator still said the words of the ancients/ The wild afternoon, the rare drops of sunlight/ A hundred years of fame and fortune are like a joke to the world...". But, the poet was also shocked to realize that, despite the mistakes, despite the thought of forgetting, tolerance is still there. There is still “the tilted conical hat waiting”, there is still “the tilted ferry waiting”, “There is still an intact bank of Ngau”… Everything is still there, life still brings good surprises, and people should open their hearts to feel it.

And I, in the moment I held the thin hand of poet Luong Khac Thanh to say goodbye to him, the moment when the city lights were on, people were bustling on the city streets, I clearly felt the warmth of a heart that was always troubled by life, accepting the "ups and downs" to cherish happiness... His lines of poetry suddenly resonated at some point, sometimes during a meeting with literary friends, sometimes in a song. And for the "amateur" poet Luong Khac Thanh: That is more than enough!

Thuy Vinh