a blogpost about Viet and Palestinian poems

I wasn’t planning on another blog post before the end of the year, but I find myself (like many) on Christmas Eve feeling immense sadness. I have nothing meaningful to say. But I’ll take time during this post to highlight a few lines of poetry.

Earlier this year, Vietnamese poet Nguyễn Quang Thiều . Part of his poem, “A Song of My Native Village” is below:

Excerpt from A SONG OF MY NATIVE VILLAGE

for Chua, my native village

Nguyen Quang Thieu

Translated by the author and Martha Collins

I sing a song of my native village
In the light of the oil lamp
Left by my ancestors
The loveliest and saddest of lamps.
When I was born my mother placed it
Before me that I might look and learn
To be sad, to love, and to cry.
. . .
I sing a song of my native village,
Bones lying in terra-cotta coffins

Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies at UCLA, published Palestine Is Today’s Vietnam on December 7th of this year. In it, she explores the history of Palestinian and Vietnamese solidarity, and ends with the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s call in 1973, “In the conscience of the peoples of the world, the torch has been passed from Vietnam to us.”

Below is an excerpt from his poem, “In Jerusalem”:

Excerpt from IN JERUSALEM

By Mahmoud Darwish

Translated by Fady Joudah

In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me . . .

I was walking down a slope and thinking to myself: How
do the narrators disagree over what light said about a stone?
Is it from a dimly lit stone that wars flare up?
I walk in my sleep. I stare in my sleep. I see
no one behind me. I see no one ahead of me.
All this light is for me. I walk. I become lighter.

The Butterfly’s Burden (Copper Canyon Press, 2007)

An end of the year reminder for myself and others, to read and amplify Palestinian voices, and wishing you the strength to hold yourself and your community in care.