Phan Nhien Hao

was in town, so I took him to Kensington, South Philly and the Italian Market. We ended up in McGlinchey's, my old haunt. I bought my first beer here in 1982. It costed me 50 cents. There is a poem about McGlinchey's in my American Tatts, and a story, "555," included in my collection, Fake House, that begins in this bar before ending up in a Chinatown whorehouse. My New York Times article from June of 2009 mentions McGlinchey's. McGlinchey's is also the bar that made Sarah Stolfa famous.

I've hung out with Hao in Saigon, Hanoi, San Jose and Illinois. I even bought a used car from the guy. In 2006, Tupelo Press published a collection of Hao's poems in my translation, Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker. The title poem:

Night negotiating a plastic spoon
on a table littered with fish bones
all the illusions have been picked clean
Charlie Parker, a piece of bread not yet moldy
a black ocean and black notes
a few million years, a few small changes
at the bend in the road on the horizon
grows a strong type of tree
the black cat is in labor
gives birth to a few blue eggs.

One more:

Night in the South

A ringing phone on the carpet
a child is calling from the womb
night in the South
women open their doors to flirt
O spittle
the kind of germs belonging to wicked souls
returning to a cultured city
only to see ducks and chickens pecking on graves
shards of stars
encrusted in the deep dark horizon
the blue ocean and the monkish jellyfish
slackers are lining up
to buy cups of ice cream and a dripping night in the South
I walk on my hands
I drive 70 miles on the side of a mountain
the precipice is below
O the women, the jellyfish and the rosy cheeks
standing on the sidewalk with legs festively spread
all I have is jazz jazz jazz
and lots of gasoline in my bloody abyss.

The book also includes this interview:

Talking with Phan Nhien Hao


Linh Dinh In April of 1975, you were only 5 years old. You stayed in Vietnam until 1991, then immigrated to the U.S. Growing up in a Socialist environment, what did you read? How did these writers influence your thoughts and poetics?

Phan Nhien Hao It's true that in April of 1975, I was still very little. But I believe that the most important factors in shaping one's character are the things one learns in the first years of childhood. April of 1975 also affected my family in a tragic way, and I think this has determined my consciousness, although, like all children in South Vietnam after 1975, I grew up with a Socialist education. To overcome the political difficulties of my family background, I tried to be an excellent student throughout my elementary and secondary schools. I was one of the best literature students in the entire country. This means I had to memorize a lot of Socialist writing to compete in the best student contests. Thanks to this, I was admitted directly into the Teachers' College, and didn't have to join the military to fulfill my "international duties" in Cambodia. Although I had to study this literature to compete in the contests, I had from the beginning seen it as mechanical and tedious. Fortunately, my family managed to keep a library of books translated before 1975. I still remember hiding under the table at ten-years-old to read books that my uncle deemed inappropriate for my age. This library had truly contributed to the development of my literary consciousness. During my college years in Saigon, I also found many books published before 1975 to read. I don't think my studying Socialist literature has really affected my thoughts in any substantial way, because I was always secretly resisting it even as I was forced to study it, because my family background had taught me who I really was. And because I was living in the South, where there were still many books published before 1975.

LD Can you speak about the influence of surrealism in your poetry?

PNH I think the influence of surrealism has become too vast and deep in 20th century arts. Nowadays you can find traces of surrealism in nearly all modem and postmodern works. To me, surrealism is only the means to see beyond the surface of things, and, more importantly, it's a method to make associations in poetry. Surrealist associations allow the poet to place next to each other images that do not seem to go together in ordinary life, it allows the imagination to widen, and from there to create a richer reality. Another important element in surrealism is automatic writing, which I think is a very useful poetic device. This creates surprises in poetry, and frees it from the narrative task. And yet, I still try to build each poem as an integrated whole, linked by a unity of emotion, within the very ambiguity and unexpected shifts of the images. I think surrealism has become an element in contemporary poetry, so it's only natural that there are traces of surrealism in my poetry.

LD You have a degree in American literature from UCLA. Encountering American literature for the first time, what were your reactions? What do you see as the differences between American and Vietnamese literatures?

PNH In Vietnam, even before 1975, far fewer American writers were translated and introduced to Vietnamese readers than French writers. After 1975, only a handful of "progressive" American writers were translated. That's why, before coming to the US, I thought American literature was similar to European literature. My first reaction to American literature was disappointment. American literature seemed too monotonous, it wasn't a type of literature imbued with philosophy, with lots of experimentations, like contemporary French literature. But then I understood that the direct, non fussy quality of American literature is a feature that has been consciously and systematically built by American writers. It's an effort to create a distinct American literature, suitable to a consumer society and a pragmatic culture, with that American emphasis on results. My experience of American literature went hand in hand with my growing understanding of American culture and assimilation into American life, and not only something I learnt at school. That's why I think it would be hard for people living in Vietnam, where the influence of French culture is still very strong, to see the beauty of American literature. But I believe that an investigation into American literature would greatly benefit Vietnamese writers. It would make them less prone to heavy philosophizing, and improve their sense of humor. I just want to emphasize that, more than any other country, the U.S. is a multi-cultural society. And that's also true of American literature. The generalizations I've made about American literature are only its most salient features, and not all the particulars of American literature. In a free place like America, writers certainly do not have to compose in a single fashion.

LD How has being in exile affected your poetry?

PNH I feel lucky to have arrived in the U.S. at an age young enough to continue my education, but not too young that I only had a superficial knowledge of Vietnam. That's why I can compare, and detect the differences between the two cultures and literatures. Life is lonely here, but people do have an opportunity to do whatever they want, and say whatever they think, without someone to harass them. People don't starve to death here. And I don't think a poet can ask for more. The other issues are personal. The somewhat isolated life of an immigrant here has allowed me to turn inward more, and for my thinking to mature more. My knowledge of American literature and culture makes me want to write more directly and more vigorously. Life has its problems everywhere, but this is the exile life I have chosen, and I will never regret having made that decision.


First published in the Australia-based Vietnamese language journal, VIET, No. 8 (2001).

.