Author Huyen Thanh Thanh: "I am grateful to literature"

Huyen Thanh Thanh's real name is Le Thi Thanh Huyen, born in 1984 in Vinh City, Nghe An, is an electrical engineer who graduated from Hanoi University of Science and Technology, and is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of TRACONIMEX Joint Stock Company, a company in the field of construction, trade and import-export.

Many people are surprised that a girl working in that field can write such soft and profound verses, verses that touch the soul and emotions of the audience, as the painter Phan Thiet once commented, "a young poetic voice but full of love, full of worries", as the poet Nguyen The Ky commented, "a new poetic face, individual, gentle, strong, creative, rebellious, breakthrough". But surely when meeting Huyen Thanh Thanh, many people will think like me, that she was born to do literature, because in every word, every look of hers always hides a desire for art that is stronger than anything else.

Portrait of poet Huyen Thanh Thanh. Photo: PV

Since childhood, Huyen loved to sing and had a good voice, but her father, who studied directing at Nghe An School of Culture and Arts, knew how happy but also difficult being an artist was, so he did not want his daughter to pursue music. Sometimes Huyen still sneaked out of her family to practice performing arts in the village. "The more it is forbidden, the more people crave it," Huyen said about her childhood passion.

Huyền’s house is in Trung Do ward, right near the foot of Quyết mountain. She said that she often sings while washing dishes, especially on summer nights, when the moon rises above the cliff near her house, Huyền’s singing voice echoes in the quiet night. She listens to that clear sound echoing far and wide, echoing towards her, as if she were flying up in her longing and returning to understand herself better, to understand the quiet and poignant sound that is growing stronger in her soul every day.

But Huyen chose literature, because until now, many years have passed, singing for Huyen is just a way to "meditate". Literature gives Huyen many other things, allows Huyen to contemplate, think, change and integrate, fly far on the long road. Composing poetry since the age of 14, 15 with innocent and sad verses, up to now Huyen Thanh Thanh has had a whole process of experimentation, noisy passion, chaotic pain, quiet worries. Because more than anyone else, Huyen's sensitive soul has taken root deep in every feeling of life to understand that art is what takes off from the most real happiness and sadness, from the most painful experiences.

Cover of Huyen Thanh Thanh's poetry collection. Photo: PV

Like many other girls, Huyen had a warm and loving childhood with her family. But unlike many others, Huyen's youth was also filled with bitterness and misery. Since the 9th grade, she had to work as a tutor to help her family, because her mother was seriously ill. For decades, even after becoming a student at the University of Science and Technology, Huyen still had to earn money to support herself and her studies.

Every day before going to teach, she waits for a text message from her parents to inform her of the day off. Exhausted and frustrated from having to shoulder the hardships of earning a living since she was so young, Huyen sometimes wants to collapse but has to force herself to stand up. Before going to teach, Huyen tries to think of a glass of orange juice, lemonade..., the glasses of water that the host will make for her during the tutoring session, as a goal and joy to ease the frustration. Those glasses of water, after all, are the only sparkling thing in a long day.

Huyen Thanh Thanh's poems of that day were tinged with sadness. She wrote poems for her mother, she wrote poems for herself. On the days when her mother was seriously ill and lying in bed, looking at her mother's hands covered with large pimples, Huyen felt a pang of pain in her heart. Loving her mother, Huyen tried to forget her fatigue and left the house every day at 7pm, returning at 11pm to teach.

Misery, pity, sadness..., but then as Huyen said, "it was poetry, it was art that saved my life". "If the life that I saw was full of sadness, suffering, and even filth, then poetry and art made me see the world differently, making people and everything before my eyes become good, beautiful, and pure", Huyen also said so.

Currently, Huyen is writing poems, stories and novels. She has published her first collection of poems entitled “On every wild footprint” (Writers Association Publishing House, 2017). The collection of poems was evaluated as successful by artist and Meritorious Artist Quach Truong Son, in which “Huyen Thanh Thanh poured out her feelings to play with magical words and showed Huyen Thanh Thanh as a very real and very poetic phenomenon”, while poet Tran Quang Quy spoke about the author of the collection of poems with the words “sensitive, multi-faceted, and endlessly wild”.

Huyen’s poems cover a wide range of topics, from family affection, love between men and women, love for one’s homeland to gentle, fleeting emotions, very real and very humane. Sometimes, just catching sight of something that passes before the eyes, like a painting on the street, a red light, or something that flashes in the mind, is enough to interact with the flow of emotions in the heart and then turn into poetry. That is why reading Huyen’s poems is to feel, not to understand. Huyen told me: “Only then can one live fully with what one has.”

Huyen Thanh Thanh shared that she is happy to live in two worlds: business and art. Photo: PV

Indeed, to understand Huyen's poetry, one cannot just skim over the words. One must stop and slowly savor each word and its resonance.“What is sweet or bland?/ two words of love/ The knife is indifferently stuck/ in the red apple/ The lonely traveler/ suddenly awakens like a gong calling/ Who knows/ it is bitter and foolish”(Illusion). Or:“And the stage is dry. Dancing. Purple and black, a dirty color. But the artist is still passionate. Love. Water bugs. Toes glide. Not a single mistake is made with the dense patchwork of life”(Before the storm).

Faced with such verses, one cannot read them at a glance. It will be a little difficult to understand, because of the unusual collisions of language, because of the unclear co-existence of images, but after all, when one feels the poetry not from the surface of the words but more deeply, a beautiful world of poetry will appear waiting, a complete and sweet world.

I asked Huyen Thanh Thanh why she chose the Polytechnic University and the electrical engineering major instead of literature and some other literature-related school. The young poetess said that she chose both. Every day she lives in two worlds, one is business, the other is poetry and art.

“But I feel lucky about this, because those two worlds do not separate me. I can still be me, because after all, poetry is not separate from life, poets are not isolated from the reality of life, but on the contrary, need to suffer the pain of humanity, to be concerned with the feelings of human affairs and the world”, Huyen Thanh Thanh confided. Then with a hint of sadness in her eyes, the petite girl said to me but also to herself: “I am grateful to literature. Without it, I probably would not have been able to break free from the sorrows of life”.

Saying goodbye to Huyen Thanh Thanh when the lights of Hanoi streets were on, I held the book of poems that I had just been given in my hand, opened it and read the words Huyen had written on the first page of the book. Instead of a dedication, Huyen wrote my name, then added “Painting please!”. I understood that she wanted to say that poetry or life is like a painting, and on a background that is dark or “dry”, “the artist is still passionate”. Even though the painting is created by “the patchwork of life”, it still shines with the color of life, still beautiful and holy as if “without a single mistake”.

Quynh Lam