Poet Xuan Dieu passed away at the end of 1985. It has been almost 38 years since the great poet Xuan Dieu left the Vietnamese poetry scene, and in many important forums for regional and international writers and poets, we no longer have the honor of hearing the poet's sharp opinions.
Mentioning the passing of poet Xuan Dieu, I suddenly remember the “Third National Conference of Young Writers” held from December 18 to December 20, 1985 in Hanoi. This can be considered a particularly meaningful literary event for young writers, taking place in the context of our country being completely unified. Because the two previous conferences only took place in the Socialist North under the condition that the country was still temporarily divided.
Holding in our hands the summons from the Organizing Committee, sent by poet Chinh Huu, then Deputy Secretary General of the Writers’ Association, Mai Son and I spent several days preparing for the “pilgrimage” to the capital. In fact, our luggage was very simple and light because during the subsidy period, few people seemed to care about material matters. The gap between rich and poor and the inferiority complex between high and low had never appeared in our thoughts, or if they did, it was only vaguely fleeting, like a fragile mist, not real.
The excitement of the first long trip in our lives sometimes made us impatient and somewhat frustrated by the slowness of the train during the 3 days and nights of sluggishness on the North-South railway. Then, we finally arrived in Hanoi - the heart of the whole country. Hanoi "Not fragrant, but like jasmine flowers/ Not historical, but like the people of Trang An" I had read in old folk songs. "Hanoi, thirty-six streets" by Thach Lam - Nguyen Tuong Lan, an excellent short story writer in the Tu Luc Van Doan group. Hanoi, full of longing, piled up with nostalgia in "Thuong nho muoi thap" by Vu Bang. And, closer and more intimate than all, "Hanoi, we fought the Americans well" I had read by the talented writer with unique writing style Nguyen Tuan. There was a strange and wonderful feeling that was hard to describe that arose in our hearts from the moment the train passed the 17th parallel until we took our first timid steps down to Hang Co station - Hanoi.
At the preparatory meeting that evening (December 17, 1985), I was appointed by the Organizing Committee to join the Conference Secretariat, along with Ms. Da Ngan (Can Tho) and Ho Anh Thai (Hanoi). That same evening, we learned that poet Xuan Dieu was being treated at the Friendship Hospital for a heart attack; if I remember correctly, this was the second time he had to be hospitalized. However, the Organizing Committee and especially the young poets present at the conference still hoped that the next morning they would be able to see the poet they loved in person on the conference stage. However, on the night of December 18, 1985, many delegates from all over the country had to abandon their meeting with four generations of writers at 65 Nguyen Du to be in time for the hospital to see the great poet Xuan Dieu for the last time. The next morning, in the official program of the conference, when poet Lu Huy Nguyen, on behalf of the Organizing Committee, read the entire text of the poet Xuan Dieu's passionate and intellectual speech, no one in the hall could hold back their tears. Many cries broke out in the Presidium and gradually spread, causing a somber atmosphere to surround the large room of the Vietnam - Soviet Union Friendship Labor Cultural Palace. This last article by poet Xuan Dieu was titled "Erudition in Poetry Writing" - in which the author passed on all the "guts" accumulated throughout his creative life to the fourth generation. Perhaps, the poet had a premonition that there would be no better opportunity to pass on the "secret" of poetry creation to the next generation, but unfortunately he no longer had the opportunity to present it directly.
The intimate meeting between the Central Literature and Arts Weekly and the young writers immediately afterwards spent most of the time discussing in-depth the preparation of articles for the special issue on poet Xuan Dieu. Mr. Pham Tien Duat was assigned to write a eulogy for comrade Ha Xuan Truong - Head of the Central Literature and Arts Department to read. I remember that elaborate article entitled "A big tree lies down, the whole sky is empty" was printed very solemnly on the cover of the Literature and Arts Weekly, running across two columns. The veteran writer Nguyen Tuan, who was suffering from rheumatism, still carefully wrote the lines of condolences sent promptly as requested by the newspaper's editorial board. I was very impressed by the lines of condolences, which had his own unique style - "the poet Xuan Dieu passed away, I feel like he took a part of my literary life with him".
Mr. Huu Thinh assigned me and Nguyen Trong Tin (Ca Mau) to write a short article on behalf of the young poets of the conference to pay their respects to Master Xuan Dieu. The newspaper was published when the delegates from the South were visiting the Song Da hydroelectric project in Hoa Binh. The delegates from the Northern provinces were honored to see off the poet Xuan Dieu to his final resting place before he returned to his hometown.
After visiting the largest hydroelectric project in the country and the famous Binh Da firecracker production cooperative, we returned to Hanoi to visit Uncle Ho's mausoleum and then went to Van Dien cemetery to lay a wreath in honor of poet Xuan Dieu. "It seems that before that, no artist's funeral had touched the hearts of the capital like the funeral of the great poet Xuan Dieu." The Hanoians I met afterwards in coffee shops, in parks, on the streets all expressed their admiration for the poet with such affectionate feelings. And it's not just the capital Hanoi, people who love Xuan Dieu's poetry are everywhere in the country and around the world. Xuan Dieu's poetry has been translated in the former Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Poland, France, England, India, Sweden and especially the former German Democratic Republic - where Xuan Dieu was appointed Corresponding Member of the Academy of Arts in 1983.
During his lifetime, poet Che Lan Vien once said that the volume of poet Xuan Dieu's works was equal to the intellectual labor of the entire Academy of Literature. That statement is indeed not exaggerated. With a huge volume of works and outstanding contributions in many different fields at the national and international levels, poet - academician Xuan Dieu has long since entered the classical world.
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