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Sketching portrait of poet Chu Hong Tien by painter Do Hoang Tuong. |
Chu Hong Tien studied General Literature in Hanoi. There are many multi-talented “mutants”, living brazenly, only knowing how to submit to beauty. He has been writing poetry since he was a student. The post-natal class still heard his name resound with Nguyen Duc Hanh, Xuan Hai, Tien Thanh, Hong Hai… But Tien rarely filled in his name in places of poetry, music, love stories and anecdotes. …
He was as quiet as his own person, did not like the grandeur and noise, just huddled in the corner of the room, as if isolated, like drifting out of the story… For many years, people knew him as a journalist, only Only a few people when listening to Chu Hong Tien realize that this name also belongs to poetry and painting.
At first glance, it is difficult to approach. Small stature. Cold face. Deep sunken eyes look like bullets in the face of the opposite person. Hair and beard tangled like withered grass. Smoking cigarettes continuously. If you look closely, you can see a strange look inside. Having a few drinks is to ask to listen to the song Urban Letter and assert that this song is an “existential” song. But playing for a long time feels passionate. And also “heavy” out: “Listen to this song, I remember my soldiers, dead!”.
Talking less, the whole session together did not say a word, only occasionally let go: “Good!”, when listening to someone read a few verses, sing a few verses. Poet Tien, like him, is thrifty. To be more precise, he doesn’t like long-winded poetry. Poetry, tightly packed emotions into beautiful photo contests, sometimes “Crying dolls crumpled old clothes”, sometimes “The bag we carry in the afternoon” or “Five fingers spread into town”…
It just looks so thoughtful! One dark afternoon, Chu Hong Tien pulled me aside to a corner, speaking softly as if afraid a third person would hear: “As promised, I brought you my own collection of poems printed in 2008”. A fragile collection of 31 poems, carefully packed in a thick paper bag signed with the word “Tien”, was said to have almost won the Writers Guild Prize at that time.
The cover poem is very beautiful and minimalistic, matching the name of Dong Thao Street. Poetry is also neat, without frills, redundant words, sometimes resounding like Dong Dao children. Tien brought the countryside to the street, raised the countryside to be equal to the city in the beauties distilled like he used to drink drops of strong wine with friends. The minimalist verses are similar to his paintings. Quickly draw dots with student pastels. Drawing as if to quickly capture the emotion that is fluttering in the corner of the eye of the amorous person. “I agree, just give me a canvas, pen, and paper properly, I can’t draw. It’s convenient to grab a piece of paper and draw.”
Tien’s poetry is neat and sharp as a sign of dismay, fragile beauty, urban-rural losses. He loves Tran Hoa Binh, Duong Kieu Minh, Nguyen Luong Ngoc, Tran Quoc Thuc, Chu Hoach… People realize that he also has something similar to talented poets who play poetry more than consider poetry as a profession. But Tien also has many qualities of its own. He brought up many of his own ideas, cherished in clear sorrows, startled with his delicate gaze and the movement of space and introspection: Afternoon filled with raspberries / In the distance there was a bird’s voice very close / How much wind, so hurry to go in the afternoon / Through the canopy of trees, the sun shines in the rainbow.
He wrote to his mother and father very simple and gentle poems like breathing. Writing about the passing of a father is like a painful farewell. No tears, no tears, but soaked in the fatherly love: “Then one night there was a tiny bird / Carrying my father through the doorway / Lighter than cigarette smoke / The hat followed me”.
He picked his own poetry from the garden and offered his mother his own poetry: “Somewhere, my mother called / The carpet asked through the thickly leafy garden / Somewhere people gave the fruit / Fragrant full of raspberries”.
Chu Hong Tien is like a “sleepwalker” who walks through the times, picking up and sifting through the bewildered glances, the beautiful things that people leave behind, like a sudden sentence: The night is leisurely around the apple… He has his own poetic rhythm, sometimes drilled and picked up, sometimes short and sometimes long, not too much of a traditional rhyme but not too disruptive. There are poems that are “objective” like the lines of news, but inside the words, there are feelings: “City / Dried fruits with bean lamps / The last bus trip of the day / Hang Buom, Hang Luoc, Hang Khay… / The boy advertised the daily newspaper”.
But it is not without rhythms: “Indigo and blue spread boldly on the edge of the forest / The dandelion celebrates what flutters / Roll up / Like smoke / It’s afternoon”.
Tien’s poetry mixes between modern and folk, not too modal but not too old, like the following short song – Lieu Lo:
“The person who rose from the lagoon
And the lotus stops looking in the mirror
Lotus ponds are like summer eggs
Suddenly waking up this morning will
Golden Stamens
White cotton
Green leaf…
August break song
Liu Lo
Liu Loo”.
Another unique thing about Chu Hong Tien is that by playing with words, he himself named the street (Dong Thao Street), the season (the Spring Flower Season), the afternoon (Violete Afternoon), and the hamlet (Thao Fruit Village). ), for the night (Azalea Night)…
In addition to writing newspapers and poetry, Chu Hong Tien is also fond of drawing. Recently, every day, he has posted on his personal Facebook page “ecstatic” paintings, quickly flashing emotional light streaks. Innocent, minimalist, he appreciates the sudden color strokes. Sometimes he paints a bright morning, a corner of a winter field, a windy dyke, sometimes just a chair in the garden without people; drawing about times of the day, moments, still lifes, flowers, trees, the wind… No big topic, philosophical message, like poetry, pure, he paints a rare light vaguely left in the midst of a life full of darkness and traps!
Since then, Chu Hong Tien’s poems and colors have “sleepwalked” through the earthly beauty, minimalism but deeply imbued with the inner gaze.