Poet Hoang Tran Cuong: "Smooth my intestines into a silk strip of Lam River"

(Baonghean)Poet Hoang Tran Cuong - author of the epic poem "Sediment" is considered one of the representative figures of Vietnamese poetry in the post-war period. Up to now, there have been more than 50 articles written about him, most of them by "giants" in the literary and journalistic world, and nearly a dozen theses and dissertations. For a long time, I have also cherished the desire to write about him, about a poet with a strong Nghe character, a son far from home who always feels pain and anxiety every time he thinks about his birthplace.



Hoang Tran Cuong was born in 1948 in Dang Son commune - Do Luong (Nghe An). This land was formerly called Do Dang region (including today's Nam-Bac-Dang communes), located on the right bank of Lam river - a beautiful countryside, a sacred land with talented people. He belongs to Mac family, the 21st generation descendant of the two-nation Trang Nguyen Mac Dinh Chi (Tran dynasty). Dang Son people still circulate the parallel sentence: "Do Dang sacred land gives birth to talented people/ Dang Lam ancient temple nurtures talented people".

As a child, Hoang Tran Cuong followed his father to live and study in grade 1 in Hanoi, then returned to study in high school in Do Luong. When he was in grade 9, his whole family migrated to Que Vo district - Bac Ninh. For that reason, someone called Hoang Tran Cuong "The man who carries the waves of 3 rivers" (Lam river, Red river and Cau river). In 1970, while studying in his final year at the University of Finance and Accounting, Hoang Tran Cuong volunteered to join the army and became an anti-aircraft artillery soldier of the heroic 282nd Regiment of the 367th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division. This soldier from Nghe An had been through life and death on many battlefields, from Quang Binh, Quang Tri to Ban Dong - Duong Chin Nam Lao, then returned to the capital, to Dong Mo (Lang Son) to fight to protect Hanoi's sky in the "12 days and nights of Dien Bien Phu in the air" campaign (1972). In 1975, Hoang Tran Cuong was honored to stand in the army that marched to liberate Saigon, contributing to the historic Spring victory.

Leaving the army, Hoang Tran Cuong returned to school to continue his final year of university. After graduating, Hoang Tran Cuong was assigned to the South to participate in currency exchange and reform of private capitalism (1976-1980). After completing his mission, he was transferred to Hanoi to work as a specialist for the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Food, a reporter for the Vietnam Agriculture Newspaper, and later as Editor-in-Chief of the Vietnam Financial Times. He is currently retired with his family in the capital city of Hanoi.



Poet Hoang Tran Cuong (far left) and Vietnamese writers during a visit to Warsaw (Poland).

Poet Hoang Tran Cuong is known for his poetry collections: "Horizon", "Traces of Days", "Sediment" and "Gifts of the Planet". But most people agree that what made Hoang Tran Cuong famous today is the long poem "Sediment". This work won the first prize in the poetry contest of the weekly Van Nghe (1989 - 1990), the Literature and Arts Award of the Ministry of National Defense (1994-1999), the Vietnam Writers Association Award in 2000, and the Ho Xuan Huong Special Prize of the Nghe An Literature and Arts Association (1997-2002). Recently, the long poem "Sediment" won the Golden Rice Cup (1980-2010) jointly organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Vietnam Writers Association, to honor outstanding works written on the topic of "three farmers". More importantly, “Sediment” has left a strong impression on readers, a work with a vitality that transcends time. With 19 chapters and about 2,000 verses, the epic poem “Sediment” is the sedimentation and crystallization of historical, cultural and sentimental traditions, a gift the author wants to offer to his homeland of Nghe An.

Throughout the length of the epic poem “Sediment”, we always encounter images of a hard-working life, often facing natural disasters and enemies: “What is the wind and storm against this land/ Lined up in a dark line on the sea/ The noon rain has not yet passed, the wind and the hour of the goat have already arrived/ Bitterness has settled into the green chili/ The land has squeezed out all the juice from the lemon segments/ Looking up, the blue sky hurts the eyes”. And here, the hardship, toil and many worries of the people of Nghe An, the people of the Central region are once again symbolized: “Central region/ The folk song lies on its side/ On the sun and on the sand/ Even the song is sifted twice/ Why is it that even though it sounds good, it still haunts us all year round.../ When will you come back to visit/ The poor land has no time to fall/ The rice of the girls is thin and red/ Only the wind and storm are as fresh as grass/ No one sows it, it grows white on people's faces”. Through “Sediment”, Hoang Tran Cuong also shows us the “layers” of the traditional culture of his homeland. There are moss-covered communal houses, the shade of thousand-year-old banyan trees, folk songs, the Lam River tirelessly depositing alluvium, his grandmother’s fairy tales, the story of the wooden fish… In particular, through a system of evocative artistic images, the author has generalized the virtues and qualities of the people of Nghe An: diligence, studiousness, spirit, respect for love and affection, decisiveness, kindness, tolerance and somewhat extreme. Let’s ponder the following verses: “Like a bowl of pure white eggplant/ Salty and crunchy/ Like strong green tea/ Bitter on the lips but deep in the heart”. And: “The river named Lam River/ Dreams cover the green ocean/ The mountains howl with determination/ Willingness as firm as a stone table/ Oh! Nghe An, Nghe An/ The golden land of the past and present/ In the midst of the raging rain and sun/ Still retains its color”.

The artistic image that is repeated with high frequency in “Sediment” is the image of the grandmother and mother. First of all, it is the grandmother, the author’s own mother, portrayed with a warm and touching affection, becoming a spiritual support: “Mother cherishes and caresses the smile/ On the faces of her children in the harvest season”, then: “Mother sits lighting a fire in the rain/ Raising me between water and sky”. It is also the embodiment of the homeland, the country with a deep gratitude of the author. In other words, the image of the grandmother and mother is the homeland. Even though she is far away, the author always looks back to her homeland with anxiety before the many changes and ups and downs of life and a pride that never runs out: "Mother is the sediment of the fruit village/ Storing all dreams and then appearing in the world/ Mother is the sediment of endless love/ The cool blue sky is filled with the warm scent of the homeland/ Bringing the wind back to the small village/ Bringing the rain down to the village well/ Bringing white clouds back to the sky to stir up the sun/ Bringing sadness out of the village".

Since the birth of the epic poem “Sediment”, the work has been enthusiastically welcomed by readers, and friends and colleagues have also given it sincere compliments. During his lifetime, poet Hoang Cam did not hesitate to praise “Sediment” and the person who created it: “The author of Sediment is a true poet, a great poet. How much must one love his homeland, how much one is attached to his homeland to be able to write like that... Hoang Tran Cuong’s poetry is imbued with the essence of the Central region, the essence of Nghe An. We can pick out each verse like sparkling diamonds. I read it three times, and each time I discovered valuable details”. And Nguyen Trong Tao - a multi-talented poet once confided: “I already have the epic poem Dong Loc (“The Road of the Stars”) and still cherish a long poem about the land and people of Nghe An, but when I read the epic poem “Sediment”, I gave up my intention because I knew that I could not write about Nghe An better than Hoang Tran Cuong”. And perhaps for the reasons mentioned above, literary critic Thai Doan Hieu gave Hoang Tran Cuong and “Tram Tich” a prestigious position in the book series “Modern Vietnamese Poets”. There, the critic did not hesitate to make the following statement: “Tram Tich is perhaps the best epic poem of the stormy, fiery second half of the 20th century”. It is known that “Tram Tich” has been translated into English and a conference on this outstanding epic poem was held in the US. Truly, not every writer has that honor.

Reading “Sediment”, I see not only the meaning and words, but also the author’s heartfelt feelings for his homeland Nghe An, just like the poet Thanh Thao said: “It’s been a long time since I’ve read such heroic and bitter lines of poetry about his homeland. In the poetry, the homeland in Hoang Tran Cuong is not as beautiful as “Homeland is a bunch of sweet star fruit”, it is struggling, tearing, twisting, tightening the chest, and heartbreaking”. And once reading “Sediment”, surely no one can forget the verse: “The Central region is thin and sharp like bamboo ribs/Sculpting its intestines into a strip of silk from the Lam River”. The author of “Sediment” added that he is hoping and wishing to have enough strength and intelligence to continue to follow his homeland, to continue to contemplate life to write new poems about the land of Nghe An in the process of innovation and integration, standing shoulder to shoulder with friends. That is also the way for the poet to repay his "debt" of gratitude to his homeland, a land of harsh nature, where life is difficult but always warm, deep and full of affection.

Bui Cong Kien