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Luu Quang Vu on Urgent Issues of Life

Smash precious guitars. Sit down and grill toad meat to eat.

The cat walks on two legs.


Call out the baby crying…


Maybe you are interested!

(Late afternoon)


Luu Quang Vu on Urgent Issues of Life

Then came the days of bewilderment, disappointment, and breakdown when facing the devastation of the country during the war and post-war period, a "pale" world with "harsh truths".

When the vast earth is full of turmoil When one takes a wrong step

When people kill each other


Letters with no destination, Ports with no ships calling.

(Autumn leaves)


The reality was so desolate, and Luu Quang Vu saw that country, that homeland as if it were a "time of suffering, all around was in ruins" , sad and numb .

There is the cry of a bird breaking its wings, the groan of a collapsed house…

(I don't want my memory to be a sad song)


The country - or rather the populations living on it - the People - has been a haunting image in Luu Quang Vu's poetry as well as the poetry of many authors at that time, that is normal, understandable due to the influence of historical circumstances. But it would be no longer normal when there is a poet who speaks unlike anyone else, but is the most honest, the most passionate about his Fatherland, about his people. That is the case with the poem Vietnam oi . Amidst the heroic melodies of the Song of Hanoi, Hanoi, faith and hope

aspiration , among the Country (Nguyen Dinh Thi), Spring 67, Spring 69 (To Huu), Road of Aspiration (Nguyen Khoa Diem), When Was the Fatherland Ever This Beautiful (Che Lan Vien), or Love and Alarm by the poet who was published in the same first book with him - Bang Viet, where the country is praised as a great organism, a great mother who has given birth to many heroic children, then Vietnam Oh by Luu Quang Vu is an open confession about the simple life, deprivation, hunger and misery during the war:

The homeland is a place of peace and joy. The place where I think my heart is most peaceful.

But thinking of Him my heart is torn… He has a million of us, I have only one of Him What will it all become?

The poor land is bleeding, where will you go?

Poor Vietnam?


(Vietnam)


But what touches the reader's mind the most are the questions that close each stanza:

What else are they going to do to you, Vietnam?...

What else do people want from you, Vietnam?

The questions awaken pain, not the usual heroic and courageous ones. Luu Quang Vu is courageous and responsible in speaking out about this reality, with the love for his homeland of an ordinary citizen, but a citizen rich in humane spirit. And therefore, he deserves to be

deserves to be considered " the troubadour of the people in the land of the monochord - Do Quang Nghia".


2.2.2. Luu Quang Vu on urgent issues of life


The harsh reality of war has made the material exploited in Luu Quang Vu's poetry completely different from his early writing period. The power of reality has permeated the poetic soul that was originally dreamy. Helpless before the problems of life, frustrated and suffocating, instead of sweet praise, he raised burning questions:

How can everyone be indifferent to see me walking on the dark street?

Everyone is guilty, before my dead childhood I rolled in the mud

But I don't know what to do

(Childhood)

In that special period, who still had the mind to think about childhood, about human destiny. People talked about the song of total victory, about fate with the heroic turning point of the country and history. But Luu Quang Vu, collecting from the fate of people, to see in it there are many problems of life. This is poverty:

The tattered clothes

The trees are immersed in darkness. The afternoon mist flickers with oil lamps.

Children sitting around a wooden tray with a few boiled noodles and vegetable soup.

For decades, this thatched roof has remained the same, the river is black and the water is shallow.

(Vietnam)

Tea sellers sleep in the summer on the old street

The skinny cow is hungry for grass.


Walking on the fields of delusion…


(Untitled)


This is a flood disaster:


Fields in flood Villages devastated People drowned

The high dikes that seemed indestructible Now broke in the night

(Some poems)


Poverty, floods, and suffering are problems of life. But the misery is that people do not know when poverty will last? When will the war end, to end the chaos and misery? That is the psychological problem of an entire generation that cannot always be talked about, even with the closest people. So it keeps coming back and worrying in the human soul.

When will the happy days come, like birds returning to the door?

When will you rest In the warm sunshine and children's laughter?

(Vietnam)


And sometimes, people have to convince themselves , “Don’t ask about the future, don’t hesitate or worry,” because at that time, that person has “Get used to disappointment, I doubt everything .” But how could it be otherwise, when that person has made so many efforts:

I try to smile at the pain, I try to believe but my heart is limited.

(Vietnam)


One of the recurring issues in Luu Quang Vu's poetry is the place of poetry, of art, of what is valuable to him. Sometimes he is silent before situations, and grieves for what has been lost.

The artist now pretends to be crazy, his eyes sad and bewildered.

Wear a raincoat to wander


Scraps of paper, feathers, and gray hair. Beautiful paintings that no one buys.

drafty attic


The old painter lies under the ancient statue.


(Untitled)


Such feelings will forever haunt us, about “beautiful paintings that no one buys”, about “sad, bewildered eyes”, and even what is called culture or memories of a time, has sunk into oblivion.

The temples of the past have been destroyed. The ancient pagodas in the rainy afternoon are covered with cold, wet moss.

Sinking into the ground are clusters of past scents…


(Ivy)


As an artist himself, perhaps that feeling was much more painful for Luu Quang Vu. It can be seen that because of that, people have found Luu Quang Vu's poems to be truly "unrealistic, bitter, and sad".

But if that were all, then Luu Quang Vu would not be such a beloved poet. Through all the pressing issues, worries and doubts, there is still a Luu Quang Vu who is passionate about everything, eager to devote himself to everything, because he realizes that deep down in this life, it is still a miracle.

The miracle of the vast sky and earth The miracle of the fragile sunlight The miracle of a powerful life So mysterious and yet so clear No one is allowed to live half-heartedly

(Wind direction)


And because he could not live half-heartedly, Luu Quang Vu chose a positive path, with a clear sense of construction.

I choose the song of the sunny summer I choose the song of the sower Today is a seed, tomorrow will be a tree

Even though there is much pain, I choose joy…


(I don't want my memory to be a sad song)


Also because at that time, Luu Quang Vu realized that "But this night, I only get to sing once - Only live one life among countless years..." Realizing another problem - the finiteness of human life "The road is very long and human life is very short", but not to be sad and hopeless but calmly reminding himself and his companions.

Must understand everything to overcome doubt


To live with the ordinary life and live with the dream ahead…


(Me)

Along with that is an undying belief that always exists in his heart, a great belief in the country and people:

Great faith in an absurd life


(Autumn leaves)


Along with that belief, a stronger consciousness in him is the consciousness of construction, meaning practical actions to make this life better:

It's easy to flatter life, it's also easy to curse life.


Building a life is difficult... I bend down and open my hands to catch water, scoop it up with my eyelashes to wash away the dust of the road, thinking about building a more beautiful Hanoi.

(Water machine at the entrance)


When facing each step of history, Luu Quang Vu always questioned himself. It was a process of synthesis of external and internal factors that transformed Luu Quang Vu, making his poetry constantly mature, more thoughtful, profound and multi-faceted.


2.2.3. Luu Quang Vu in his feelings about war


Luu Quang Vu is considered a “natural” poet, with a natural appearance, not achieved through hard work. He easily expressed all his joys and sorrows on paper: happy moments with friends - expressed through poetry; sad and lonely moments - comforted himself with poetry; when life was full of troubles and troubles - kept a diary in poetry. That is why many poems have not been widely published, they only survive in the memories of family members, friends, close readers, or lie quietly in the author's notebook. Luu Quang Vu's feelings about war are just such a “quiet” piece of poetry.

Life during wartime was full of hardships: “ Hanoi was like a sick person … The walls of houses that had not been swept for a long time showed all their mold. The basements were dark shelters. The makeshift huts on the attic were tattered in the wind ”, in Luu Quang Vu’s poem, the poverty of a country during a historical period was deeply imprinted:

The Hard Years


The streets are full of tunnels, the walls are full of slogans. People's clothes and faces are the color of withered grass. Lack of food, lack of clothing, lack of housing.

(Rewrite a poem Hanoi)


With his own sensitivity, combined with the breakdowns in his family life, Vu caught those things very quickly, he concluded:

The city when I was 17 years old, unrealistic, bitter and sad

(Midnight to a strange city in the rain)


That was a mood that went against the general mood, the general optimism needed at that time, so Vu's poems were considered out of line, beyond normal regulations, and Luu Quang Vu had to pay the price when the press stopped printing his poems. Vu became more and more lost and lonely among the crowd of people fighting enthusiastically, his poems lost their rhythm and tone among the heroic anti-American verses:

At seventeen we often went there, talking a lot about distant seaports, our noisy and bitter youth.

At the threshold of life, the vast dark forest


(Suburban coffee shop)

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