Vết Tích Chiến Tranh

Scars of War - Music Youtube

Vết Tích Chiến Tranh

Trông con đường nhỏ ưu phiền

Hàng cây cũng đứng triền miên tủi hờn

Ta về gió buốt từng cơn

Gọi em tiếng mất tiếng còn vang xa

Chiến tranh cướp tuổi ngọc ngà

Mắt em ngơ ngác lệ sa đầm đìa

Lá rừng đọng giọt sương khuya

Đạn bom cay nghiệt xẻ lìa châu thân

Ôm em thương xót căn phần

Trái tim còn những phân trần khôn nguôi.

Nhật Thụy Vi

Đà Lạt 1968

(English Version)

Scars of War 

Did you see on a narrow dirt road

the wind blew those  broken trees

In the midst of this cold wind I had come back

to hear only the echoes repeat 

Did you see where the war that takes

my young love, her breath, her dream

Have you seen from the eyes that shut

a constant stream of sad tears flow

It’d have stoped if each leaf in this vast

jungle hold those droplets of pain

Which bullets had torn her apart?

which bombs blew the earth she loves?

 I’ve cried for so many lives that lost

yet no explanation to lift off  sorrows!

Da Lat 1968

Translation – Norman 4/2008

 https://kimblekorner.wikispaces.com/Nhat+Thuy+Vi

Commentary by Kathy Ho 2/15/2015

This poem is full of potent feeling of tragedy. The harshness of the narrator’s feelings come out in the trochaic speech and masculine endings. This poem is an endeavor to express the effects of war on the narrator. The poem then starts to shift to the effects of war on the narrator’s physical state until the poem delves into the effects of war on the narrator’s mental state. The narrator starts with the imagery of a narrow road and a row of sad, broken trees. This is probably an attempt to show the effects of war on the environment around the narrator. The narrator is standing in a cold, sharp wind and questioning why they had come back to this place to hear the echoes of what they had lost. Next, the narrator tells how the war affected them physically, how it had stolen their precious youth and their dear future. They tell how war caused their eyes to cry streams of tears and of how all the leaves in the jungle cry with them late into the night. The narrator then tries to personify the bonds between people. They say that the bullets and bombs of war had the cruel effect of severing the ties that people hold with others; they divide friends and family. The narrator then expresses the extreme anguish they feel for those effected by the war. The effect of this descent into anguish is to demonstrate that those things (bonds, youth, future) are the casualties of war. They are what is sacrificed and lost in war. War has robbed people of their youth, deprived them of their future, and denied them their bonds and what is left are the scars of war.

Commentary by Elizabeth Hwang

Elizabeth_Hwang Feb 22, 2015

I think it’s really amazing how you were able to do your poetry project using Vietnamese poems. Even though our poems are from different countries, I can still imagine that it was challenging to interpret the Vietnamese culture and figurative language. The “Scars of War” used beautiful imagery and your explanation really clarified it. My favorite line is, “It would have stopped if each leaf in this vast

jungle hold those droplets of tears.” I further saw how the author felt when she shared the number of tears shed and how there were so many that all of the leaves would have to capture the droplets. She clearly shows how the war hurt her. It took so much away from her and her bright future, but what she seems to be the saddest about is losing ties to family. I know that most Asian families are very close to one another and it must have been devastating for her to lose those connections. I also thoroughly enjoyed “Sunset on Glacier Bay.” It was so much fun reading a poem conveying their love for nature because I love nature too! I think it’s really neat how significantly nature influences people. I also agree that it should be appreciated to the fullest extent.

Commentary

josephk97 Feb 20, 2015

I think that your analysis on "Scars of War" was spot on and it helped me a lot with understanding what the poem was about and the purpose of why it was written. It's always interesting reading poems that is written in another language because there's a challenge with talking about the poetic devices and the meaning of the poem even with a translation, but you did an excellent job at that. Your analysis was spot on, but you could have quoted the poem more. but you did a good job talking about the imagery used in the poem. I can agree with your statement that the poem is full of tragedy. I also liked how you talked about the meter used and how it there were masculine endings to show that the poem was about tragedy. I agree that wars can leave scars on people because just imagining being in one is painful because people can die during wars and go through painful events that are stressful and a lot to handle. The fact that the author talked about how a war affects a person's physical and mental state, and the fact that you talked about what the author said about it was excellent and spot on. I agree with what your analysis says and it was helpful with helping me understand the meaning of the poem. The imagery helped tremendously. I think you could have talked about more poetic devices but other than that, again, your analysis was spot on and it was helpful.