(Reading the poetry collection "10 autumn fingers" by Vo Van Luyen, Vietnam Writers Association Publishing House, 2023)
Poet Vo Van Luyen, a member of the Vietnam Writers Association, in 2023 released the poetry collection "10 Autumn Fingers" and this work was recently awarded the A prize in literature by the Quang Tri Provincial Literature and Arts Association.
The above collection of poems is an inheritance and continuation in the writing of poet Vo Van Luyen, showing the consistency in the writing style of a professional poet in Quang Tri. Interspersed between realistic poems are non-realistic poems, showing the diversity and exploration in the author's artistic work. The topics of the collection of poems are also rich, with many forms and aspects. They can be memories of trips and poetic feelings from places or personal thoughts and philosophies of a writer with a deep love for poetry and life.
Like the realistic poem "The rain reminds me of missing someone" is as affectionate and meaningful as a folk song with a folk flavor but still finds another way of saying: "After the burning sun comes the pouring rain/ the Central region has endured silently for so long/ the winter is cold as a plow/ the green buds are still full of precious oranges... not long ago, there were many storms/ the old wounds have not healed yet, reminding me/ waiting all night for a moment of silence/ but why is heaven and earth sulking with each other...". "Winter is cold as a plow" or "Waiting all night for a moment of silence" are the poet's subtle discoveries.
The poem “Sen Thuong Xa” begins: “the lotus buds are like the age of the full moon just beginning/stop singing the nursery rhyme/stop braiding the ponytail/the waves have known the waves...”. The first three lines have a folk song feel, but the last line is a modern poetic exploration, bringing unexpected associations to the reader.
But there are quite a few poems in which surrealism overwhelms realism, and if there is any realism, it appears as an excuse, a nail hammered into the wall to hang the author's poem. "Ten fingers of autumn" is an example: "...ten fingers, short and long, undulating, an illusion/the dream of a herd of cows/returning to the heart of the city/the ambition of the wind/dying in the fragrant grass..." to the end of the poem, the poetic meaning is condensed, blurred and intermittent, appearing unclear, requiring a different field of association than usual and even vague judgments from suggestive verses: "ten blind fingers/black and white reversed characters/green river turns into red sea/the sound of the flute kills memories/suddenly autumn".
From another perspective, if examined from a formal perspective, there can also be quite interesting discoveries. For example, the writer's creative restlessness is often entrusted at night or after sleep, or it is insomnia as the names of many poems suggest: Awake with the sound of birds, Awake, Sound of birds in the night, Last night, Dreaming about Hue and you, Spiritual night, Sad as night leaves, Moonless night, achingly missing mother, No longer frivolous with the blue sky, Dream, Night filled with dreams, Awake with the sound of birds, Dreaming of the sound of birds knocking on the door at night, Lulling an insomniac night, Dream of birds, Dreaming of singing about sick Saigon, Listening to the sound of rain at night, Calling night.
Night obsession has become an artistic concept, a symbol that is repeated quite a lot in this collection of poems. It is also the author's way of confronting his own self, deepening his thoughts and drifting between the two shores of reality and illusion, with both incarnation and split-body, sometimes like psychoanalytic sleepwalking: "as if there is a steady spinning sound counting the rhythm of time/the night watches are different now/sleep is fitful, dreams are wrong/as if he is reflecting himself/someone said fear makes people cowardly/cannot lift their feet/but recklessly accompanying death/knowing how to bet in the dark..." (Night is no longer frivolous with the blue sky).
Vo Van Luyen still maintains his poetic style through “10 fingers of autumn” and many works have also become more “mature”, with more experiments. I hope he continues his poetic journey, always standing firm on the path of life and poetry.
Pham Xuan Dung
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