ABOUT THIS BOOK

When Washington Post columnist Edward Hirsch reprinted Lâm Thị Mỹ Dạ's "Garden Fragrance" and "Night Harvest" (from Six Vietnamese Poets), he gave special praise to the simultaneous clarity and complexity of Dạ's poetry. Now, for the first time in English, readers can enjoy a full, bilingual volume of her selected work. While many of her poems deal with her experiences during the Vietnam War, they are grounded in her intimate involvement with the landscape, flora, and fauna of her country, and explore love, motherhood, women's issues, and the sometimes difficult movement into middle age.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1949 in the south central part of Viet Nam, Lâm Thị Mỹ Dạ spent the war in Quang Binh province, near the scene of much heavy fighting. Author of five books of poetry in Vietnamese, she is widely recognized as one of Vietnam's major poets. She is the recipient of two awards from the Vietnamese Writers’ Association and the highest honors from the National United Board of Vietnamese Literature and the Arts. She lives in Vietnam.

Martha Collins is an American poet and translator. She is an editor-at-large for FIELD magazine and one of the editors of the Oberlin College Press. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Thuy Dinh is a writer and translator who has written in both English and Vietnamese.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction by Martha Collins

Garden Fragrance
Night Harvest
Journey into White Night
Bomb Crater Sky
The Face Beneath
A Mother Story
Winnowing Rice
Scent of Areca
Custard Apple Tree
Birdsong in the Rice Field
Half-Moon
As Leaves
Gathering My Years
The Sound of the Bronze Drum
By a Statue of My Chau
Are You Good Enough?
Cat in the Window
Speaking to the Heart
Connections
Dawn
Luc Bat Streets
A Deep Green Time
Cricket Song
Echoes
Night-Blooming Cereus
Untitled
Meteorite
With the Perfume River
White Water Lily
The Nest
Girl
The Fertile Heart
Tableau
Childhood Story
Green Rice
Dedicated to a Dream
Untitled
Rain
A Pine Cone in Pasternak's Garden
Row of Camphor Trees
Saigon Rain
Illusive Lover
By Waves
Small as a Doll
The Wild Rosebud has Changed
My Plum Tree
Looking Back
Yesterday's Mother
Skipping Stones
There Is No Sea
The Night-Blooming Cereus and I
Woman Wearing Black
Friends
The Color of Phai Street
January
Poem for the Year of the Buffalo
Translators' Notes

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.