Stones and Flowers – a flowery poem to give ( ĐÁ VÀ HOA MỘT BÔNG THƠ DÂNG TẶNG)
Do Trong Khoi
Reading “Months And Years In The Forest” – The Publishing House Of The Army of People – 2005.
The poem book “Months And Years In The Forest”, published by The Publishing House Of The Army of People, in 2005, was considered as an enough collection of Nguyen Anh Nong in his career of writing poems. The author, was born in Thanh province, had some poems printed on newspapers when he was a student of The Infantry Academic I. Since he moved to Cao Bang after he graduated, his poems seemed more mature and more promising. And right in Cao Bang, Nguyen Anh Nong wrote many good poems which were full of heroic souls. His works in this period became the base for the success of this poem book. Such as: Months And Years In The Forest, Morning, Go Around On Bang River Bank, Come Back To My Hometown…
As a poet of the Army, of course Nguyen Anh Nong always wrote about the images of the soldiers. The problems of war, sacrifice, as well as normal lives in peace went into his poems with deep feelings, thinkings and concerns, but all of them were displayed by his talented and true loving sentences. The poem “Months And Years In The Forest” which was used as the name of his book symbolized for his successful style of Nguyen Anh Nong’s poems.
Words and sentences in the poem were simple but subtle and general. Pictures in the poem looked like the cuts to make the real life of the soldiers in the forest appear:
MONTHS AND YEARS IN THE FOREST
For many months and years in the forest,
with my comrades, I had been a sharp sword
with my comrades, I had been a shield at the border landmark.
*
For many months and years in the forest
I had eaten in the sun, slept in the fog
I had expected the mails for few times every day
I had made friends with the moon, with winds and clouds every night.
*
For many months and years in the forest
A few of my comrades had fallen down
But their holy spirits still stay there with the leaves in the forest.
*
For many months and years in the forest
Fire-ants had bitten and made my soul hurt
when I heard the storm and the flood were coming to my hometown…
*
In the poem above, some sentences sounded as a sigh, not because of regretting but it was purely an innocent sigh before an unbelievable reality: “My beloved people in the past were so indifferent that they turned into strangers/ The day I went down town/ I felt dazed, bewildered…” A soldier, especially a soldier living in the forest, on the island, far away from the modern life-styles in the city with new look, new points of view, then he felt himself a stranger. Therefore he thought he was a stranger not only to his beloved people but also to himself. And in his love: “Then we become two classical people when we love each other…” (The Love Of A Navy Sailor).
There were systematization and solution in the way he showed the reality when he chose the art of poems. And the characters of a soldier in his poems, through the cuts of pictures, in any levels of emotions, were lit brightly by the steel of his will, his power of loving and giving. Therefore, peace and love and trust were still the essential feelings of the book, even inside some poems about the lose, the sacrifice: “My friend’s life ended at his youth/ He was there wherever the country needed him/ Though some of his comrades changed the thinkings/ He was always the pure and clear small stream…” (A Memorial Song By The Stream).
In Nguyen Anh Nong’s poems, the peace and trust which people gave to people were pushed deeply, interactedly, freedly to the bottom of the souls: “Now their graves turned green with grass/ Smoke of their joss-sticks visited each other, at times…” (Writing With Inspiration).
The depth of spirits and principles which was scarved in Nguyen Anh Nong’ poems expressed his concerns, anxiousness and sad sighs but it didn’t mean the extremity, the sorrow and the despair.
In Nguyen Anh Nong’s poems, he used pictures and words as the rhythms of performance through a prism of spirit. There were outstanding pictures of Stones and Flowers. There were four wonderful sentences in the poem “Flowers And Purple Grass”:
The grass is as purple as the violet flowers
Grievedly, flowers were waiting for butterflies and bees
But butterflies and bees were interesting in strange sky
Then violet flowers caressed the face of an old stone.
In the poem “Go Around On Bang River Bank”, pictures of flowers by the stones were blended with colors and sounds very well: “I can’t wait for the blue sky to understand/ The god is still as dazed as the trees and the grass/ Everything is real but it seems virtual…” The next sentence suddenly became a strange and interesting picture: “Then noisily in Bang river, stones give birth to flowers”. The sound noisily when stones gave birth to flowers truly was the strange sound. Stones hatched, it seemed the sky shook and the earth moved, but in this case, only the poetic ears could hear that. When stones and flowers were in the same scene, Nguyen Anh Nong always had a chance to write the impressive sentences, poems. He wrote the poem “A Song By The Grass” for the grass, but the concept under that was about fates of people and reasons of lives. Using stones and flowers as materials to write poems let us know that he had a special style to operate words and structures of poems. This promised the success, but the author himself should think more to get his own special style.
Through the poem book “Months And Years In The Forest”, Nguyen Anh Nong was more successful in a series of poems with simple and true words, created emotions at problems and pictures around him, made the readers understand what was closed to the soldiers’ lives.
Also, in the poem book “Months And Years In The Forest” there were few poems very outstanding with creative style, such as: “The Hot Snow Region”, “A Portrait”, “I Divided Myself”, “A presentiment”…
“… Then once I passed myself
I turned into me with a different face
Once you passed yourself
You turned into not only a river but also a waterfall
I turned into a boat to pass the whirlpool you
The whirlpool was high up to the sky
It might break a boat me in a minute…” (I Divided Myself)/
The poem displayed the character of multi-dimentions and multi-pictures of “dividing himself”. He searched into himself and met himself in many different faces. He wished he could regconize his truest face. In the past, many monks did do that and most of them drowned into themselves. Through the slays of language, ideas in poems displayed a poet Nguyen Anh Nong desired walking on the street, but along with him, there was some feelings rather deep and interesting: “I’ve already got you/ Then suddenly I’m stunt and dazed/ ‘Cause when I have the happiness/ Your image has changed…” (A Water Crab)
His organization of language and his ability of creating the content which could go into people’s egos, things’ natures, were the new effort of Nguyen Anh Nong’s poems. However, straightly to say, there were still few poems, few sentences very sophisticated and arranged. The words lost its balance because they were built on a base of ideas and art which were lacking in perfect.
With the achievements, with the slays were expanding for hope, the soldier poet Nguyen Anh Nong will still walk steadily on the long road of poetry. “Months And Years In The Forest” with its value, the value of a flowery poem which was created by Stones and Flowers, by a soldier’s love, as a gift to poetry.
02/September/2005
D.T.K
Source: The Army Literature And Art Magazine – vol 645 – May, 2006.