Repeating Image Motifs.

3.3. Poetry

Poetic form - a concept of genre - is an important category of literary theory, telling us about the formal aspect of the work, the methods, the ways of constructing the text and the images. In the concept of the static self, genre represents a perspective, a field of observation, a concept of life.

It is difficult to talk about a unified poetic form in Luu Quang Vu's poetry, because he experimented with all types of poetry, from traditional national poetry, to Tang Dynasty seven-word poetry, five-word poetry, and most of all, free verse poems, free in terms of words, framework, rhyme... But it can be said that like tone, poetic form does not seem to be chosen by Luu Quang Vu rationally or thoughtfully, but rather it is his emotions and poetic ideas that choose the genre for him. The source of emotions that is always endless, passionate, and overflowing seems to have broken through, broken all poetic forms, all arrangements.

However, that does not mean that Luu Quang Vu's poetry lacks familiar poetic forms. The six-eight verse form, the voice of the countryside and fields, which is the solid foundation for the creativity of any poet, has entered his poetry quite fluently.

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The green rice is heavy with golden grains. The distant fields have been harvested, the village roads are covered with straw.

(Autumn golden fields)

But that poem is probably also the only poem in which Luu Quang Vu applied the national six-eight verse form, because it is suitable for the scene and the subject. The limitations of the six-eight verse form coincide with the limitations in expressing emotions, because there are too many rules to follow, while Luu Quang Vu's poetry is a type of poetry that focuses on emotions and is always free from all constraints. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why he later did not write or could not write six-eight verse anymore.

Luu Quang Vu also had many poems following the familiar poetic form of that period: each stanza had 4 lines, with strict rhyme, such as Tuoi Tho, Ao Cu,

Chu Hung Village, Today's Noon, Warmth of the Hand, Town Crossroads, That Day, Garden in the City, Windy Season, Small Restaurant, Spring on the Mountain, Sending You and Your Child, Untitled, Sending a Girlfriend, Eyes of the Blue Sky, Yellow Flowers Remain, Wind and Love Blowing on My Country ... We can clearly see that these poems were all written during the poet's happy period: the fresh happiness of the first days of growing up, the passionate happiness of his first love, and the lasting happiness of his last marriage. At that time, the poet still had poems that were more or less traditional in style, but in other periods his soul was complex, full of contradictions, his poetry could not stand still, could not follow rhyme rules, it returned to the original, just like him - flowing with emotions, difficult to grasp and difficult to divide into stanzas and sections.

Even in poems where it seems like the poet will be faithful to that poetic form and that rhyme rule throughout the entire poem, that seriousness is still broken by one or two lines of poetry that are shorter or longer than one word:

Before I could hold it, my hand was gone.

Why don't you love your hometown more? The watermelon garden's sweet water overflows, wetting the skin. Sugarcane put into the oven, green and fragrant honey

(This afternoon)

Like two rivers meeting and exchanging alluvium, the water flows and blends in color, exchanging sympathy with two tightly held hands.

Hear the blood of mother and father moving between each of our hands

(Hand Warmth)

The poem "Farewell" is a new experiment, although not strange in the history of poetry: every two lines of poetry form a stanza. Normally, with only two lines of poetry, it is very difficult to fully express an idea. This can be said to be an interesting and talented poem by Luu Quang Vu:

Hand waving in the dim sunlight, please don't regret. Life is so big, don't worry about being alone.

Each two-line stanza expresses the complete idea, and the two lines rhyme with each other. There are very good and often difficult rhyme pairs such as "tap - met", "tet - chiec", "duoc".

– before … but when used properly, it leaves a strong impression on the reader.

Since the age of fifteen or sixteen, Luu Quang Vu's poetry has been a type of poetry that is not constrained by structure or vocabulary. The rushing flow of emotions has broken all frameworks, making his poetry have a strong appeal:

Why is the river's name Thuong? So that my heart will remember

The ancients said that here are a few small streams of tears, Sad streams sent to the vastness of the ferry to Nha Nam.

Ferry across Phu Lang Afternoon rain and bright sunshine How many years has it been?

(Crossing the Thuong River)

Far from elaborate and mysterious forms, his poetry is as innocent as everyday speech, exclamations and off-the-cuff questions placed in the right places cause indescribable feelings:

That afternoon you guys go

Pale sunlight turns the stubble yellow. The wind rustles through the bamboo hedge.

En stood looking behind the door.

The country fights the enemy in a hundred ways

Where are you going?

(To you guys)

Is it true that what is natural is the easiest to win sympathy? Because of this natural flow, Luu Quang Vu often uses double rhymes, rarely uses single rhymes, creating a special, smooth and melodious melody:

The bee enters the garden and doesn't remember the way out. My garden is a place where the wind from the distant sky stops. Purple flowers, birds chirp. The leaves are sparsely sunny. The spider comes and goes, spinning white webs.

The fruit is plump and full of sap, where the grass is wet with dew in the morning.

A small, vague mole on the cheek

What cold air is the finger holding the frost?

(Garden in the city)

The poem " Dat Nuoc Dan Bau" is a long poetic structure, in which the writer must skillfully connect the layers of poetry. After the echoes of history:

Horse hooves galloped

The Northern invaders are coming back…

My Chau died without understanding why Trong Thuy became the enemy?

These are images of life today:

Autumn wind

The sound of the monochord sobs

Every afternoon, I go out to the alley, the river is long and the fish are nowhere to be seen.

love father miss mother

Immense lightning sea rain source…

Then there are the old traces:

On the carvings on thousands of ancient statues, human hands are still hot in wood and stone. Birds dance and flowers smile.

There are many more images that follow each other and intertwine like that. Here, Luu Quang Vu's connecting device is the image of the monochord:

The sound of the monochord, the sound of the monochord, longingly remembered, In the strong wind under the sun of the homeland

Still gnawing at the endless thirst of the alluvial land, where human footprints are endless...

Luu Quang Vu's experiments with 7-word and 8-word poems are quite numerous, in addition to 5-word poems ( Afternoon, Thang Mi ), 6-word poems also appear sporadically (Nga ba thi tho) . But the most are still poems in "free form". Because of that naturalness, there are two types of readers when coming to his poems: those who find it interesting, who like it, and those who cannot feel it, because: what kind of poetry is like words, not rhymes:

Not the joy or sorrow of any individual but the turning point of survival of the whole country

(Moscow Spring)

Poetic ideas seem to form themselves in the process of perception. Luu Quang Vu's poetry rarely shows traces of structure, that's why many people who want to dissect poetry with a scientific eye and specific, rational arguments are often uncomfortable when encountering his poetry, eyesores before the endless poetic lines:

Now, he fully understood the saying in Shakespeare's play:

To be or not to be?

Doesn't mean living or not living

It is action or inaction, perception or non-perception.

aware, impact life or turn away from it?

He doesn't worry about whether he is talented or not, successful or unsuccessful. He only worries about one thing: what to do with ordinary things.

Normal days

Like a small box, like a calendar on the wall I turn into a ship, into a ticket The mornings of departure

(For Quynh on the days away)

Prose poetry is very suitable for expressing the whole meaning, especially when the author has many moods and emotions. In Luu Quang Vu's poems, there are also very long titles: Winter Solstice Night, Drinking with Uncle Lam and Uncle Khanh, Talking about farewells in troubled times . Not short, not flowery, not having beautiful images, metaphors as is often required in the title of a poem, Luu Quang Vu is always honest and natural with his statements.

3.4. Repeating visual motifs.

Imagery is one of the components that make up poetry, but using images as a constant and systematic technique is not a characteristic that every poet has. Reading Luu Quang Vu’s poetry, we see many images that are repeated over and over again, becoming an obsession, such as country, rain, wind, fire, flowers …

3.4.1. Country

It is not by chance that Luu Quang Vu has such a good Dan Bau Country . Whether expressed or not, and expressed in any form, deep in the heart of that son, he always worries about the image of the country, the beloved fatherland, especially when the thing he loves is suffering many hardships and difficulties. The country is present in Luu Quang Vu's poetry with many different names, sometimes solemnly as Fatherland, Country , sometimes affirming sovereignty with the two words Vietnam, Vietnam , sometimes intimately close as Homeland , sometimes the Fatherland is present in the image of the Nation, the People 12 .

According to our statistics, the word Country with 24 appearances is mentioned the most by Luu Quang Vu, and appears regularly, throughout all the periods of Luu Quang Vu's poetry (this frequency of appearance is different from the frequency of the words Homeland and Fatherland that we will analyze below). It is also easy to understand, because it is not only the most general and popular way of calling, but it also enters the poetry of this period the most with many poems that have become immortal.

Homeland is mentioned heavily in the early stages of Luu Quang Vu's poetry. Homeland is the place where one is born, the place where the umbilical cord is buried, where " each person has only one... If anyone does not remember, they will not grow up to be a person " a place with many childhood memories, for the author it is the scent of grapefruit leaves and lemon leaves that follows every step of the march:

The shape of the homeland in the gentle trees and leaves... The trees and leaves here, the leaves of the homeland

(Grapefruit leaves, lemon leaves)

Those are the roads: “The homeland road, the road of love ”, the gardens, the rivers, those are the sounds: “ The sound is as clear as the sound of the homeland ” ( Small restaurant ). Everything from the past, from childhood, everything familiar and close is affectionately and passionately called Homeland by Luu Quang Vu .

12 Please see the statistical table in the Appendix

Fatherland is another way of calling one's country - more solemn and grandiose. What is special is that in the early poems, Luu Quang Vu only called his homeland, his country , but never his fatherland . It was not until the later poems, the poems that were recently allowed to be published in the Posthumous Works - Flowers That Don't Die - the poetry that was previously considered "black poetry" by Luu Quang Vu, that the country was called by a very solemn and sacred term: Fatherland :

What is a homeland if there is no one we love? What is love if we do not love our homeland more because of it?

(For Quynh on the days away)

Luu Quang Vu had very good and easy-to-understand comparisons and explanations about the relationship between personal love and love for the Fatherland, or in other words, it is the relationship between the public and the private, the I and the We, which he later - more strongly, frankly and clearly - brought to the stage in the famous play I and We - a direct blow to the individualism, bureaucracy and authoritarianism that were rampant in society at that time. The desire for the public grew stronger and stronger:

If this earth is a vast homeland

(Cities of distant lands)

The change in the way of calling the country from the previous Homeland to the later Fatherland is also a way to show the maturity of Luu Quang Vu, showing his changed vision and ideology. At that time, the country was not only limited to the scope of a hamlet, a village, a town, a district or a city, but was the entire vast Fatherland, this vast country was familiar everywhere, becoming a part of the poet's flesh and blood.

Luu Quang Vu proudly and frankly affirmed the people's right to be masters by calling the country's name: Vietnam, Viet Nam . Many times " Oh Vietnam " resounded in his poems, both passionate and familiar. The country also includes the national soul, which is the Vietnamese language - the language of the people.

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