Pham Quoc Ca: A poetic heart has stopped beating

Poet Pham Quoc Ca.

As a poet, doctor of literature and a teacher in Da Lat for almost his entire life, but in his heart, poet Pham Quoc Ca always yearns for memories of his homeland, where the Bung River (Dien Chau) reflects the small village of Tho Khanh with many familiar images:

"Remember the days of the cold north wind

Rain flies misty field

Wet straw beside the bare row of mahogany trees

The cow was emaciated in winter.

The nostalgia for his mother, his sister, and his beloved home from childhood always haunts him, the poet's heart is always throbbing with distant memories. All of it flows into his poetry with heavy emotions, aching for his hometown.

Reading the poetry collections "The bass sound", "The village in nostalgia", "Open horizon", "Forests, songs" or "Poems written in album", we all encounter emotional ranges towards our fatherland and ancestral land. In every poetry collection, we also encounter poems with deep love for the homeland such as: "By mother's grave", "The house left behind", "Visiting sister", "Suddenly awake with the sound of chickens", "The village in nostalgia", "Poetic friend", "Dawn I will set off". Even poems about love such as: "Spring rain", "Dalat has you", "Communication moon"... are all associated with the image of the village and the longing of a child far away from home. The nostalgia in Pham Quoc Ca's poetry is first of all the nostalgia for the village associated with a poor and difficult childhood:

Oh the old days

That's my childhood.

The coldness follows the memories

A small village of a thousand years of straw and bamboo

(Missing Mom)

Poetry collection "Golden Rain" by poet Pham Quoc Ca.

Remembering the village is remembering the mother, the image of the mother appears in Pham Quoc Ca's poetry with such frequency that it occupies most of the poet's memories, the verses are filled with love for the mother:

"Lying awake all night on my arm

"I miss my mother's warm and soft hands from the past"

(Mother's Lullaby Night)

In the poem "At dawn, I set out again", we encounter a hard-working mother:

"The years I fought the Americans in the deep jungle

Mother was cold and wet in the rainy season there.

Watching the children

Booming sound

Mother's heart is bombed every day.

The years I returned to school

Mother loves her grandchild, wearing wooden clogs and hammocks at night.

Mother's night is always wide

Lullaby full of crescent moon…”

Poet Chung Tu recounted his memories of meeting Pham Quoc Ca in Da Lat, he choked up reading poems about his mother and his brother. The touching verses commemorate his brother, martyr Pham Van Cu, who died on the Tay Ninh battlefield in 1969:

"I searched for you throughout the forests

Dense lines of names carved into the wood grain

Where do you stay?

Four directions of fire and smoke

Every bomb sound seemed to fall on him.

Or the poems filled with love for brother and mother:

"Now there are nights when I dream of you coming home.

Then woke up startled and burst into tears

I keep waiting for something that is no longer there.”

With such heartfelt and haunting verses, poet Pham Quoc Ca certainly cannot forget the days of his childhood with his mother and family. The image of his hometown is always a painful part of his memories. Remembering those works, when poet Pham Quoc Ca sent them to the editorial board of "Voice of Poetry" of Voice of Vietnam, poet Nguyen Bui Voi, who was then the editor of the program, had to exclaim: "It's really Ca's, my brother from the same hometown". The program "Voice of Poetry" immediately after that broadcast poems about his homeland and mother by poet Pham Quoc Ca and received loving responses from listeners nationwide.

Talking about friendship, poet Pham Quoc Ca also has many precious feelings for poet Nguyen Trong Tao - a talented artist from the same hometown as Dien Chau, to whom he wrote a poem:

“Remember the day the straw hat went to school?

Our childhood bombs rained down on the school yard!

…

Long time no see hot wind in my hometown

Every time I come back, I just look across the river.

In that nostalgia, poet Pham Quoc Ca could not help but admire his talented friend:

"As a soldier, he became an artist.

Talents: Music, painting, literature

My heart silently ripens late

Poetry ignites the fire of the battlefield.

Pham Quoc Ca's poems matured late, but have been tempered through time, through bombs and bullets, through challenges, so that now readers across the country can enjoy and feel a simple, emotional, and passionate poetic soul.

Today, poet Pham Quoc's heart has stopped beating, but his poems about his motherland Dien Chau still resonate, touching and heartbreaking:

"I left the house for quiet

Night after night the moon shines in the empty garden

How many Qingming Festivals do I not return to burn incense at my mother's grave?

Love the golden sunset afternoon"

(The house left behind)

That house will now welcome him back to his homeland, to the cool Bung River, to the banks, the fields, the bamboo banks… That is where he was born, grew up and he returns:

We grew up in our mother's mahogany house.

Share the gift with me first

Boys grow up by measuring the pillars of the house.

"A durable shirt is passed on to each other."

Pham Quoc Ca has published six collections of poems and anthologies, winning 12 literary awards for poetry and critical theory. These are the collections: “Ton den” (poetry collection, 1987), “Chan troi gao” (poetry collection, 1994), “Lang trong nho” (poetry collection, 1996), “Thung vat, song” (poetry collection, 2004), “Some issues in Vietnamese poetry 1975-2000” (monograph, 2003), “Poetry written in album” (poetry collection, 2010), “Poetry and some literary issues” (monograph, 2017).