Keywords:
Tô Thùy Yên, postwar Vietnam, Vietnam War, reeducation camps, Vietnamese socialism, south Vietnamese literature

Tô Thùy Yên was the pen name of Đinh Thành Tiên (1938–2019). Born in Gò Vấp (now a district of Hồ Chí Minh City), Tô Thùy Yên’s early literary career was closely associated with the journal Sáng Tạo [Creativity], in which he published a number of short stories and poems since 1957. His early poetry was characterized by the bold use of free verse and wide exploration of philosophical themes. In particular, the poems published in Sáng Tạo show a marked avoidance of traditional meter and rhyme. A member of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Tô Thùy Yên eventually obtained the rank of major. After 1975, he was imprisoned in various reeducation camps for a total of thirteen years. He resettled in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1993 and eventually moved to Houston, Texas, where he would live until his passing in 2019.

Unlike his early poetry, much of Tô Thùy Yên’s prison poetry (as well as a number of major compositions written in the United States) reverted to traditional meters such as lục-bát and thất-ngôn trường-thiên.1 At times, this classical turn was exhibited not only in meter but also in idiosyncratic sprinklings of recondite Sinitic diction and carefully woven allusions to medieval Chinese poets such as Tao Qian (367–425). A meticulous poet, Tô Thùy Yên only published two volumes of poetry, both after his relocation to the United States: Thơ tuyển [Selected Poems, 1995] and Thắp tạ [Oblation, 2004]. A third volume, Tô Thùy Yên – Tuyển tập thơ [An Anthology of Poetry, 2018], was published shortly before the poet’s death—this final volume being an anthology compiled from the previous two collections. His later compositions sometimes employ the austere free verse characteristic of his early poetry. Equally comfortable with form and free verse, Tô Thùy Yên’s most popular poems include pieces written in both modes. Apart from the medieval Chinese canon, Tô Thùy Yên’s mature poetics sometimes suggests the influence of his broad reading of the Western canon: the Bible, William Blake, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Arthur Rimbaud, to name a few. Tô Thùy Yên has long been considered among the foremost of poets in the Vietnamese diaspora and has recently enjoyed a limited but steady rehabilitation among readers and literary critics in Vietnam.

The following poem, “Tháng Chạp buồn” [Sad January], describes the sentiments of a prisoner unable to visit his family during the Tết holiday. Like many other festivities in Vietnam, Tết is heavily associated with family reunions, during which children express wishes of longevity and good fortune to their parents. The title of the poem refers to the last month of the lunar calendar which typically falls around January in the Gregorian calendar. “Sad January” is a ballad written in the heptasyllabic meter. As is usual in his later poetry, Tô Thùy Yên strictly observes the tonal regulations demanded by this medieval form, all the while crafting a lush and melancholic lyricism comprised primarily of vernacular diction. The poem is divided into three sections in which the speaker addresses his parents, wife, and child, respectively. It is strongly implied, but never directly stated, that the speaker is a political prisoner being held in a reeducation camp.

—Dan T. Nguyen

Translated by Dan T. Nguyen

My dear parents, your son will not return this Tết,
My weary legs still drag the burden of a shackled fate
In pensive pain, I sift through memories, too many to count
Eight years; a heart ashen by ages beyond mortal measure…
Eight years—how endless they once seemed
They too have passed away, these feeble and failing echoes…
Only anguished longing remains, outlasting vanished seas,
And the broken wings of birds overhead.
North and south I went, and back again
Everywhere there is only the pain of our race
I wept, and my soul dissolved into tears,
Daybreak has long since abandoned this world.
I’ve long passed the age of doubts and uncertainties.
Why is it that I wander still, like one groping in the dead of night?
Eight years—how many times have my clothes been tattered and torn,
Mended with layers of longing and despair.
Time has taken up residence in our house
The dust of termites and the sweeping wind…
From the depths of a thousand watchful nights
Waiting for one to return from a sunken abyss.
I remember the garden: deep, shadowy, and cold
Each tree, a witness to a love profound.
Gathered around my parents in muted grief
Like a fragment of myself, frozen in silence.
Eight years, and a thousand white nights,
Dreaming that daybreak will be different,
I clasp my hands in the enveloping darkness,
Knowing that I’m lucky simply to be alive.
Eight years I’ve stored away in deepest recesses
A wanderer’s sword from bygone youth
Awaiting a tomorrow, when the heavens awake from fitful sleep
And raise up a storm to shake the very sky.
My dear parents, your son will not return this Tết
Rivers and mountains still divide so many hearts,
I can only wish you tidings with these sentiments
Both of you withered with age, like bamboo in final bloom.
* * *
My dear, I will not return this Tết,
Surely you’ll mourn like the autumn grass,
The wind of seasons past whisper once again
Life’s flow grows chilled with indifference…
Eight years lonely echoes all but wasted away
Still resound from each beating heart,
Still resound from deep in the grave
Through a thousand doorways of heavy silence.
The river divides two realms of memory
Endlessly, growing more distant with each day,
Still, we call each other in every dream
Startled and panicked like birds falling mid-flight.
Does the spring still reach you out there?
Springtime, when flowers bloom like your blushing cheeks,
Springtime, with your new dress, fresh as hope
And the honeyed sunlight lights up your bright eyes.
It doesn’t seem like spring will arrive here.
The forests and mountains are still numb with grief.
My longing for you overflows like a deluge of blood
Pouring out of my heart like a river breaching the levees.
My heart is pained at the loss of our homeland
Our abandoned lives, left only with travail.
Even if I died, I would become a wandering ghost
Wailing each night for our homeland lost.
I remember the paths you once walked
The flustered grasses and flowers beckoning us home,
Has time since fallen asleep?
Has your beauty now faded into sorrow?
I remember much I once reckoned lost
Love long past, like a river branching into scores of streams,
Love long past, like withered seed fallen to earth,
Buried under the leaves of seasons gone.
I remember—how can I not—
Our home, warmed with loving voices,
Our home, like a fresh dream in deep blues
With moonlight and the fragrance of hyacinth.
How could you not be sad?
These eight years, the apricot flowers have fallen,
Your hair, preserving the last vestiges of youth
Perhaps has now also lost its fragrance.
My dear, I will not return this Tết
The reeds will age yet another spring.
Longing for one far away in sand-blown barrens,
Waiting to be released from the sunken abyss.
* * *
My child, your father won’t be home this Tết
I know that sorrow has drained your innocent youth,
From the day I left, our home lost its roof
And your tender years were shaded with gloom.
From the day I left, the world fell mute
Your round eyes, bloodshot from waiting,
Each time a visitor wandered by
You stopped your play and stood forlorn.
The songbird in your heart has died
My little one, why are you still looking for it?
Calling out until your voice grows hoarse
Only to weep in the darkening gloam.
Eight years, wind and rain have moaned and wept
Little birds no longer chirp their happy songs,
After a muddled youth, you’ve grown up early
Finding yourself deserted and lonely wherever you turn.
Eight years, you’ve quit going to school
Life, like nothing but a bowl of putrid rice,
Each time you walk past your old school yard
Do you hasten your steps, afraid your friends will call?
Slowly, your mother raises you on gruel and greens,
And you grow with countless sorrows.
Dreaming that you’ll one day be a valiant warrior,
Charging with saber into regions of pain and loss.
In the future, you’ll build a large house,
And replant love and kindness on all your paths,
You’ll rebuild man, preeminent and divine,
And create a new world, fresh and pure.
I love you beyond what words can tell
Your jet-black eyes, shining with hidden dreams.
Your gossamer sun-dyed hair, warm with summer’s glow,
The subtle smell of books from childhood.
Far from you, I know only sorrow without end
As if I’ve lost my own childhood once again.
I regret that we cannot together relive
Those happy days I still hide in my dreams.
My child, your father won’t be home this Tết
I can only be home to see you on Tết another year,
Remember to save some old firecrackers
Save that small remnant of your happy youth.
1.

The lục-bát couplet consists of a hexasyllabic line and an octasyllabic line with an internal rhyme (usually) linking the terminal syllable of the hexasyllabic line with the sixth syllable of the octasyllabic line. In its most basic usage, folksongs and idioms [ca dao] often consist of a single lục-bát couplet. In many early modern works, the lục-bát meter is more akin to a form of metered prose rather than lyric poetry. The New Poetry movement divorced lục-bát from its association with metered prose and championed its usage in short and medium length compositions. Thất-ngôn trường-thiên is essentially a ballad form which consists of quatrains written in a septasyllabic line. While governed by various rhyme and tonal regulations, both lục-bát and thất-ngôn trường-thiên are fluid in length.

2.

English translation of Tô Thùy Yên, “Tháng Chạp buồn,” copyright 2025, United States Institute of Peace. I have translated the poem as published in the 2018 anthology of Tô Thùy Yên’s collected poetry. The poem itself was written earlier and appears with minor discrepancies in other sources. See Tô Thùy Yên, Tuyển tập thơ [An Anthology of Poetry, self-published, 2018], 139–146, https://online.fliphtml5.com/dsvii/dmpq/#p=10, accessed November 27, 2024.

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2025