has been translated by Luis Aberto Arellano, and published here, with original. Arellano has done a Spanish version of my book, All Around What Empties Out. It will come out in Mexico City next year. Also, a Vietnamese poem, my first in several years, on Tien Ve, with several layered wordplays that make in untranslatable into any other language:
Thơ tình cho mợ
Thôi mà.
Thối má.
Má thúi.
Má thối cho tôi
Cả cuộc đời.
(Mà.)
Mẹ Việt Nam, lăng
Mạ Diệt Nam. Chợt thấy
Mợ Giao Chỉ, tui toe toét,
Xoa xoa dạ dày.
Thằng con mất dạy, phủi
Đít lép, ngoảnh mông da
Ghẻ ướt, tôi cạ mợ giữa chợ
Quốc tế. Mợ bảo, Mày bèo, thua
Cả ca ve trong nước. Hơn nữa,
Lại phản động. Thôi thì. Thôi mà.
Xỉn băm ba, hương hồi hương,
Sám hối, tôi rên, Tiếng A bờ cờ còn
Thì nhạc rap A bờ cờ còn, thì tui
Và mợ sẽ còn lênh đênh dưới đít
Thằng Ngô. Tuy mợ còn ngụy
Hơn tui, mạ Việt của mợ phai,
Tui quái thai, nhưng, nhưng
Sẽ có ngày, ngón cái
Tui và mợ hun nhau.
.
3 comments:
Hi Linh,
Any chance you can post some audio or a youtube video reading of this?
Hi aL min,
I haven't recorded this, but if you want to hear some of my poems in Vietnamese, they are available at the bottom of this page:
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Dinh.php
Linh
Thanks Linh. These recordings are great. I really love the unique sounds of Vietnamese.
Oh, and regarding one of your later posts, I was waiting for an MTA bus with mobs of people this morning in uptown Manhattan (Washington Heights), when an empty bus pulled over, and the driver got out. He yelled out, "Goldman Sachs! Anyone for Goldman Sachs!" No one answered. He got back in and continued downtown in his empty bus. Shortly thereafter, a kindly woman pulled over and asked if anyone needed a ride. All the dazed commuters looked at her as if she asked the same thing as the bus driver. I got in with one other person. Overwhelmed ill-run government (at every level) and utterly deluded commerce hardly seem choices at all. I'm seriously considering not voting this year.
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