Pham Cong Thien, Byron, Baudelaire, and Ba'

Ba' is my given (first) name. My father, being an expert in botany and a tree-lover, named all his five sons after trees. I accepted the name, but I have never particularly liked it. When I decided to enter the world of writing, I gave myself a whole slew of new names: Wissai, Roberto, and Silvio (many more might be forthcoming). I like Wissai best. It sounds Indian and German. It has a whistling, thrilling, melodious quality. It also reminds me that I have to seriously study German, if I don't wish to make a monkey of myself as I often see others doing. What others might see me as a publicity hound is actually a lonely yet proud man trying to hang onto sanity and find relevance and purpose of the business of living.

I noted the passing away of PCT with much regret because I read two of his books when I was 18. He impressed me with his knowledge of many languages and of philosophy, the same areas of which I had a budding interest. I still remember he blasted Suzuki very hard about the meaning of Zen Buddhism. I didn't know much about Zen Buddhism then and I still don't know much about it now. But I am satisfied that I got from Buddhism two concepts that I found useful and relevant: 1) impermanence of compound beings and thus detachment, not attachment, is the solution to suffering. 2) Self and Others are One.

I didn't know that PCT wrote poetry, again, the activity in which I dabble from time to time. So when a post about him was in the forum with somebody by the name of Jason Gibbs at San Francisco Library having taken a stab of translating stanza # 8 bearing the title "Hiu Hat Que Huong" from the long poem "Ngay Sinh Cua Ran" caught my interest. I shuddered as I was reading Jason's rendition. I didn't know if Jason was a native speaker of Vietnamese or not. I decided to do justice to the strikingly original and compact stanza. I didn't see much point in translating the title of the stanza as "Homeland, wistfully." To me, as much of the stanza was about the winds blowing across hills, I put down the title as "Over my homeland gently blew the winds", a long-winded translation but I liked it, and that was what it counted. As Chung, a poet himself, noted, PCT's words are resistant to translation, it was indeed a struggle for me and it was a labor of love. I had a great deal of pleasure of being able to express in English "While I stand upon a hill amidst the blooming clouds" for "Tôi đứng trên đồi mây trổ bông". I was further gratified when Chung liked my translation enough to request my permission to post it in the VSG. Later on, I realized there were two other efforts, besides Jason's, to translate the stanza. Comparing my version with the three other versions that have come to my attention, I don't feel that I need to bury myself in shame and embarrassment.

Regarding "She walked in beauty", as explained earlier, it came to me out of nowhere, i.e., from deep within the subconscious. I wrote it very quickly, no more than 10 minutes. It was more like a variant of a limerick than a serious poem although the sentiments were heart-felt and experienced more than once. Love at first sight, can be exquisite and wildly pulsating, the feeling only a precious and impulsive few have the privilege to experience. The poem reminded Hien of Baudelaire's "À une passante". One thing led to another, and I found myself translating the maudlin Baudelaire. I had the advantage of consulting the three other English translations that Hien had kindly supplied me with. Once again, I had the audacity and temerity to fancy that my translation topped the other three, beginning with the translation of the title of the poem itself. While I know all too well of my deficiency in French, my feel for the English language has a long history, starting with my masters Shakespeare, T.S.Elliot, and e.e.Cummings.

Wissai



(to be continued)