four Tran Da Tu poems

                                                        
                                                            
[ Note: This post will contain several asides or insides
or whatever-you-wish-to-call-them remarks which will be
enclosed by brackets.  Over at the Poetry Foundation's   
Harriet blog Linh Dinh has shared his translations of   
four poems by Tran Da Tu after a short introduction.  I
am grateful.  May you also be. ]                        
                                                      
"Love Tokens", "Toy for Future Children", "Fragmented
War"; "Standing" are the four poems.  Ostensibly these
are war poems, but they are not so in any sense I am
accustomed to.  Linh writes: "His war poetry reads as if
it was written, well, right now."  Yes it does, and I think
I know why.  The angles of vision the author takes/
raises them to a different order, an order I am calling
the deep within, which has nothing to do with the idea of 
"deep image" but everything to do with the human spirit.
I first read these poems several days ago, and have read
them twice since.  The second time I read them/ Celan 
and Adorno came to mind, but I'm not equating Tran Da Tu
with Paul Celan and I'm not stopping at Adorno's hard
after-Auschwitz thought.  [Notice what these poems are
devoid of.]  The poet here is speaking from the spiritual
in him to the spiritual in each of us / all of us.  The facts
in the poems are not merely there for factualness.  Each
poem is addressed to a someone or a group, but only
through pronouns and general nouns.  This distancing
reveals empathy.                                                 
                                                             
Beneath the facts, Tran Da Tu's attention is on the will-
ingness of humans to harm each other, to perpetrate evil
acts which are presently visible and which have conse-
quences forever imaginable; and the suffering and unto-
death sadness resulting therefrom.                       
                                                           
[Sartre wrote: "Hell is other people."  My response and
David Bromige's response: "Heaven is other people too."]
                                                        
[Jesus: ". . . love your enemies. . . ." / and in that prayer
to the Father He taught to his disciples: "And forgive us 
our trespasses as (emphasis mine) we forgive those who
trespass against us."]                                   
                                                       
You want Armageddon.  We do not need Armageddon.  We are
Armageddon, and until we cease lording it over each other/
we will continue to be Armageddon unto our extinction.  The
A- and H-bomb horrors will seem as nothing once the robot
armies we create figure nearly everything out, and turn on us.
That is, if we even make it/ to that juncture.                 
                                                             
Can a poem change one's life for the better?  Yes, but I 
cannot promise any will.  Certainly, for those who are open
to it in them, these poems have the power to.               
                                                            
                                                             
                                                            
~
Rho00047