Sang et Fleurs (iii)

From poet Tố Hữu and translator Mireille Gansel with poets Xuân Diệu and Pierre Emmanuel at Les Éditeurs français réunis

BLOOD AND FLOWERS

The path of the poet TO HUU

“The poet TO HUU was born at Hue in 1920. Son of a [petit fonctionnaire: low civil servant and a peasant woman of the [environs: area,] he [commence à militer: joined the (anti-colonialist) movement] from the age fifteen when he was still [collégien: (in my lifetime first a junior high now) a middle school student.] With his struggle rose his song. He was arrested in 1939 and, in prison at forced labor, would come to know many jails of Southern Viet Nam until his escape in 1942. At the Revolution of August 1945, he was president of the Committee of Insurrection of Hue. In the [maquis du Viet-Bac: (partisans in the bush) resistance north of Ha Noi] he was the cadre charged by the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam with [problèmes: productive issues] of education and culture. In this book, he talks of his path: the path of the poet and the path of the revolutionary make one only along his life and his verses, of which we publish here large extracts. The [petit disque: 45] that accompanies this book presents, by verses [cantilés: cantillated, chanted, sung] in the manner of the people, or spoken by To Huu himself, or accompanied by a monochord, all the music which Vietnamese poetry [porte en elle: brings.]”

“Reading the poems of TO HUU, one thinks of the voice of a friend; one thinks also of the grand international of the poets Eluard, Hikmet, Neruda, Ristsos… and one hears at the bottom these words of Nazim Hikmet:

believe in seeds

in the earth, in the sea

but before all in man

love the cloud, the machine, and the book

but before all love man

REUNITED EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS OF FRANCE

21, rue de Richelieu, - 75001 Paris”

[Word for word changing word order only as for adjectives and nouns. Language without direct translation in one American English word expanded in brackets:

petit fonctionnaire, environs, commence à militer, collégien, maquis du Viet-Bac, petit disque, cantilés, porte en elle.

All of these translate word for word into everyday Vietnamese. They are nuggets of life shared among all French and Vietnamese speakers not just Communists.]

This was the third Viet Nam letter of 5 addressing Sang et Fleurs from poet Tố Hữu and translator Mireille Gansel with poets Xuân Diệu and Pierre Emmanuel at Les Éditeurs français réunis.

I sent the first on February 28, 2023, the second on March 3, 2023, then the fourth on March 12, 2023, and the fifth on March 24, 2023.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.