Also in this issue.
Poetry from Australia
Poetry from EuropeIncluding Rilke, Desnos, Bartolo Cattafi, and Albert Samain.
Poetry from South Americaincluding Pablo Neruda and Carilda Labra.
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More poets and translations in:
Ian Bui was born on December 15, 1961, in Saigon. On April 30, 1975 his familywas evacuated from the U.S. Embassy on one of the last helicopter flightsout of Vietnam. His entire childhood was spent in a war, but he was also able to attend the Saigon Conservatory of Music and to study Englishafter school. After resettling in Shreveport, Louisiana, he finished high school andwent on to study Computer Science at Louisiana State University andgraduated with double minors in English and Economics. He is currentlyworking as a Systems Engineer in Telecommunications at Harris Corp.in Melbourne, Florida. Besides writing and translating poetry (in English and Vietnamese),he also does some singing/songwriting for pleasure and is an avid amateurphotographer. He’s a longtime member of the very first online Vietliterary magazine Van Hoc Nghe Thuat [literally: Arts and Literature]at www.saomai.org and his photos can be seen there http://saomai.org/~vhnt/ianb/collection.htm. Born “Nguyen Phuc Dan Thanh” in Di Linh (Central Vietnam), Co May grew upin Hue. She emigrated to the Netherlands in 1992 and is currently living in Switzerland and workingas a Chemical Engineer. Her poetry has appeared in the collection Lan Ban(2000)with several other authors. She is also a regular contributor to the VietLiterary magazineVan Hoc Nghe Thuat on the Internet at http://saomai.org).
Than Nhien Born “Ton That Thien Nhan” in Hue (Central Vietnam) on January 9,1962, Than Nhien emigrated to the US in 1990. He currently lives in Washington State and writespoetry,short stories and plays. He has two poetry collection published — Vuc & Gio(1999,with several other authors) and Da Giac (2002) from which “Fetus” wasextracted.His work has appeared in numerous Vietnamese literary magazines inside and outsideVietnam, both on the Web and in traditional print medium.
Nguyen Duc Son was one of the noted poets of the Vietnamese 60’s generation. Today he has a reputation as an eccentric. He shuns civilization almost completely and lives like a hermit in the highlands of Vietnam, giving rise to the nickname “Son Nui” [“Son of the Mountains”]. Some thinkhe’s irreverent and weird. Others think he’s a genius. Everyone seems to agree that his writing style is unique and his works can be exceptionally brilliant. He rarely comes to the city. He is the only person these days who dares to visit Tue Sy regularly.
Tue Sy is a Buddhist monk and a Vietnamese dissident who at one point was on death row and only was released from jail in 1998, after tremendous pressure from international groups such as Human Rights Watch, combined with the Vietnamese government’s attempt to appeasethe US in order to obtain normal trading status whichbecame a reality on December 11, 2002. He’s a scholar and intellectual who oncewas Dean of Van-Hanh Buddhist University in Saigon. Although he’s nottechnically under house arrest, Tue Sy is still under constant surveillance by the secret police.
