Lac Viet Series No.1

Hoa Dia-Nguc / Flowers from Hell, by Nguyên Chí Thiên. 136pp. (1984) A bilingual edition of poems selected and translated by Huynh Sanh Thông. The poems were written during the author's twenty years imprisonment in "re-education camps" of Vietnam from 1958 to 1978. [The poet won the 1985 Poetry International prize on the basis of this book.]

"..... these poems by Nguyên Chí Thiên...represent a remarkable legacy. We see no reason to apologize for the strident anti-communist tone of this poetry, which was, after all, nurtured in Vietnamese prisons for twenty years.

....what is most memorable about these poems is not the target of their cold rage. ....what is memorable in these poems is the quality of the anger, the apocalyptic vision, the survival of dreams, hope, and love, the minute observation of prison life, and above all, the survival of poetry in Nguyên Chí Thiên.

.....""He tells us that he is 'lost and lonely, bobbing up and down. / Smashed boat, snapped paddle - stranded in the wreck,' but adds 'I still dream it, keep dreaming it, my dream.' He counts his ribs, but still trades corn and cassava for tea, for 'poetry thrives on tea at night.' For this man poetry was no luxury - it was the staff of life."

-From "Welcome to the Lac-Viet" by James C. Scott, Chair and Executive Editor, 1984

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