Vietnamese poetry a poem by Huu Thinh explicated

Vietnamese Poetry

A poem composed by Huu Thinh translated into English by Nguyen Phan Que Mai and J. Fossenbell entitled A Word explicated by Dr. Ramesh Chandra Mukhopadhyaya and a note added by Dr. Mousumi Ghosh

Text

 A word is like a paddle

Once broken, many people have reached the shore

A word is like a saw blade

Once rethought many trees have collapsed

A word is like a deep well

Mirrored into the earth, it sees the sky inside itself

The poem A Word is the first poem of the book of poems entitled Wild Under the sky. It seems to give a tongue to the aesthetics that the poet pins his faith on. Is not a poem manufactured with words? But what is a word like? The poet seeks to dwell on what word – the basic constituent of a poem is like. Well, the poet states that a word is like a paddle or an oar. Does it not necessarily mean that we men are on a voyage in a boat? And it is with words that we do go forward in our voyage. Had there been no language, men could not have dreams or ideas which beckon them to the land beyond the sphere of sorrow. Language comes first and ideas next. Or else the poet imagines that we human beings have been born into the waters that are ever on the move. It underlines the hard fact that change is the category of existence where everything is in a flux. The waterscape has no beginning. But with words human beings sail on the waters and dare the unknown and the unpredictable. The poem states that the paddle once broken, many people have reached the shore. It is through language that is constituted with words that man remembers the past and prophecies the future. And the word reminds the poet that many people have reached the shore of the shore less waterscape when the words failed them. Think of Robinson Crusoe. He was shipwrecked and reached an island never before inhabited by any man. Think of Gulliver. He reached the strange shores ruled by the Liliputs. But is that all?  We employ the words only to reach a plane beyond words. And when words fail, the readers are transported to a plane that could be better felt or realized than described in language.

The second stanza announces that the word is like a saw blade. Once the past is realized through words, many of the mighty trees that reigned during the times of yore are felled. Maybe we readers can hear their great fall. At the same time, we know that each word, each fresh poem is born on the corpses of the past. Each poem refuses to imitate its predecessors and hence it is born. Thus the poem seems to hint at the aesthetics of anxiety of influence. But again the poet feels that the word is like a deep well. The function of a deep well is to serve as a source of water that is so essential for life to live on earth. But this is not all. The sky is mirrored on the well. The sky stands for infinitude and the emptiness that envelope the existence. Every word seems to have the infinitude in it. Every word sees the sky inside itself. Does the sky stands for Bodhicitta? When a poem is made of words and when every word finds an infinitude in itself, the poem becomes a mantra. It transports us to an esoteric world. Thus language carries us to a realm where language falters and fails.

A Note by Dr. Mousumi Ghosh

The first sentence of the poem is– A word is like a paddle. Words are compared with paddle. Paddle signifies a move, transporting one from one place to another place.Transport is sine qua non with civilisation. The whole economic thought of present world is also focused on the objective of transporting emergent desires far and wide. The second line of the poem answers that – once broken, many people have reached the shore.  Break the vicious cycle of mundane economic chain of production, distribution, consumption and again more production, more distribution and more consumption. Break the capitalist chain and we will reach the shore where desires no longer harass us.

The second stanza says that a word is like a saw blade. Once rethought many trees have collapsed. A saw blade can cut a tree very quickly. Similarly a word spoken can have very quick impact.  Let us take the line – many trees have collapsed. Indeed many trees have collapsed and many trees are in coma due to the saw blade decisions of the mundane economic world. The economic development of today is synonymous with urbanization. Urbanisation focuses on built space where each and every unit of land is used for the most profitable economic activity. Thus building of eight lane highways, power plants, dams seem to be more necessary than a serious study of green economics. Just like word power, saw blade is the tool used for paving the way of urban infrastructural development. And the poet, the far seeing member of the planet earth laments seeing things in retrospection-- many trees have collapsed.

But the word is not only a saw blade. It is also like a deep well. Thus it is the source of sustenance. Moreover, it acts as a mirror where the infinite sky is reflected.  This piece of literature can be a guide for the economic planners of today .