Customer Reviews

Spring Essence

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Over the years, a clever voice echoes," poet-translator John Balaban writes. "On the river, an old moon recalls Xuan Huong" (p. 135). Ho Xuan Huong (whose name means "Spring Essence") was an eighteenth-century Vietnamese poet and concubine. "Often just giving up, but always returning," Balaban spent ten years translating the forty-nine poems collected here (p. 14). Through her poetry, Xuan Huong is known for "her verbal play, her wicked humor, her native speech, her spiritual longing, her hunger for love, and her anger at corruption" (p. 5). She wrote her poems in "Nom," Vietnamese common language. These poems are sensual and erotic, and full of sexual double entendres (e.g., "Weaving at Night," "Swinging," The Paper Fan," and "The Wellspring").

Balaban succeeds in interpreting Xuan Huong's imagery into English verse that resonates with spring essence. In "Autumn Landscape," Xuan Huong writes, "Drop by drop, rain slaps the banana leaves," and "My backpack, breathing moonlight, sags with poems" (p. 19). In "The Scarecrow," she writes, "I've never stepped out on the road to fame/ seeking reward only in a little dew and rain" (p. 99). In "Questions for the Moon," she asks, "Weary, past midnight, who are you searching for?/ Are you in love with these rivers and hills?" (p. 111). In "Spring-Watching Pavilion," she sees "heaven upside-down in sad puddles," and then observes "Nirvana?/ Nirvana is here nine times out of ten" (p. 115).

This sensually-rich collection left me hoping for more. My only disappointment was learning that these hundred pages represent "most of Xuan Huong's extant poetry" (p. 14). This thin book shines brightly.

G. Merritt

There are some books necessary to particular libraries. There are some books necessary for particular readers. In an age of diverse languages and lingustic development this is a book necessary for all readers of poetry. Buy it. Read it. Admire it.

I picked this book up, read one poem and could not put it back on the shelf. The poetry within the pages comes from a sharp eye that recognizes the complexities of life in few words. There is timelessness here. -- And bravo for the details/research included...such background information is as fascinating as the poems.

These poems by the 18th century Vietnamese poet Ho Xuan Huong (whose name means "Spring Essence") as translated into English by the poet John Balaban are truly delightful. The poems poke fun at self-satisfied government officials, intellectuals--men in general--with good-humored irreverence. "Young Scholars," picturing students who "can't even talk," suggests that "Someone. . . teach these fools/ to take their brushes and paint the pagoda walls." With the voice of a concubine who knows her clientele intimately, HXH writes of the "male member": "Newborn, it wasn't so vile. But now, at night,/ even blind it flares brigher than any lamp." Clearly, this poet is courageous, attacking convention at a time when few Vietnamese women even knew how to write. She does not reserve her wit for men alone, but accuses women of being weak-minded as well, as in this line from a poem offering "consolation" to a young widow: "If you've got weak blood, don't eat rich food."

As any attentive reader can see in the versions of the poems printed in modern Vietnamese, HXH utilizes rhyming forms. Balaban's translations pay homage to the forms by attending to rhyme and sound without being bound by strict rhyme. The near-rhymes in this couplet from a poem on cats offers a good example of the sound-play Balaban engages in : "their only thought is to pounce on a mouse/ then croon from rooftops arousing meows." (The poem, in Huong's clever use of double-entendre, also suggests more than it says). Despite the sometimes rough subject matter, this is an elegant book.
John Balaban and his publisher, Copper Canyon Press, deserve a lot of credit for bringing the poems of Ho Xuan Huong to a contemporary audience in three versions--the original ideographic Nom script, the modern, Romanized Vietnamese equivalent, and Balaban's lyrical English versions.

Bilingual and a writer myself, I know painfully well the treacheries of translation. Especially poetic translations. The thought alone sends shivers of horror and dread down my writerly spine. Perhaps it is great fortune that I have absolutely no knowledge of Nom, or the Vietnamese language, from which the poetry of Ho Xuan Huong is translated. I cannot say whether Balaban has or has not succeeded in his translation of this 18th century concubine's poetry. What I can say: I attended a reading by John Balaban. He read Xuan Huong's poetry in both English and in Nom. I almost felt, listening to the music of the language alone, without comprehension of the language itself, that I loved listening to its musical quality even more than I loved listening to the English translations I understood. The blind see and the deaf hear? Sometimes it is so. It was music to my ears. When he read about the rain falling on banana leaves... Thanh thot tau tieu may hat mua... I could hear the rain plunk and patter on the leaves. Balaban had clearly approached his work with passion and pleasure, and this is exactly what he brought out of Xuan Huong's poetry - passion and pleasure, spiced with humor. I had to purchase the book after the reading, simply had to. I won't argue the authenticity of the poetry I read in this volume, but I will state that it gives me pleasure to read it. "My backpack, breathing moonlight, sags with poems..."

I spent six years in Vietnam as a linguist during the war, and have remained familiar with written and spoken Vietnamese because of various business ventures. The translator undertook a major task here, because the subtle meanings of language, the idioms, change with time. As best I can tell, he misses the mark often, and seems to have relied on a dictionary and his own poetic skill. You can actually look up in the Vien Ngon Ngu Hoc dictionary, and see how he pulled translations from the dictionary. People may or may not like the poems but I don't think they reflect the original of the author. It is too bad that the translator didn't consult more with native speakers, which generally would be standard practice.

As a Vietnamese who has some background in the Vietnamese language and literature, I am amazed by poet John Balabans keen interest in my language and its poetry as well as his poetic skills through his well-known and well-loved translation of Ho Xuan Huongs poetry entitled Spring Essence.

Balaban skillfully brings to life the three-century old Vietnamese female poet to the Western world. More importantly, he also makes it alive and appreciated by the intellectual, contemporary readers. Needless to say, Balaban has done a remarkable job translating Ho Xuan Huongs poetry.

Her poetry structure, which is complicated by the Vietnamese art of NOI LAI (reversals) that she cleverly applies in her poems and her very own way in creating sexual themes full of double meanings. To do this, it takes a translators special talent and extraordinary effort to take on this major task.

Poet John Balabans own art of translating Ho Xuan Huongs poetry is to reveal a poem behind a poem in such a delicate way so that his non-Vietnamese readers can explore and enjoy Ho Xuan Huongs poetry further, which is what literary translation is all about.

Since poetry language is metaphoric that requires a certain level of understanding of literature, it is unrealistic to expect all readers (Vietnamese or non-Vietnamese) to catch the soul of Ho Xuan Huongs unsual poetic style. However, Balaban makes this possible.

HO XUAN HU'O'NG (1592-1788) - her name translates as 'Spring Essence' and hence the title of this collection - lived in a period of corruption and danger in Vietnam. Translator John Balaban successfully brings her works to light for English readers in this 150-page collection of her poems. It is a treasure to encounter for the nascent student of Asian poetry.

As a concubine Ho Xuan Hu'o'ng was able to bravely and cleverly 'expose' her clients and write visceral, risqué poems that served as her own means of speaking out against what she saw as social, political and religious disintegration. She could, in fact, be considered one of the first feminists, so shrewd were her attacks on male authority as only a concubine could gain insight. But it is not just the ideas behind her words that make the difference: her poems are beautifully constructed and elegant, as in 'Confession':
Her lonely boat fated to float aimlessly
midstream, weary with sadness, drifting.

Her hold overflowing with duty and feeling,
bow rocked by storms, adrift and wandering.

She rows on, not caring who tries to dock,
sails on, not caring who tries the rapids.

Whoever comes on board is pleased
as she plucks her guitar, sad and drifting.

As we become more aware of the cultural gifts of Vietnam it is a joy to encounter the poetry of Ho Xuan Hu'o'ng. Grady Harp, November 06

I am always somewhat perplexed by translated volumes of anything and yet I have to rely on tranlations all of the time. It's always heartening, especially in poetry, to see the original language on the facing page. Since I don't read Vietnamese I have no idea if John Balaban has done a worthy job on the poetry of Ho Xuan Huong or not. Two of the Vietnamese reviewers posting seem to think not. I read this volume the first time
outside on a windy day in autumn and found the verse quite charming. When I re-read it again this winter I didn't enjoy it quite so much. There are many lines and passages that are very beautiful but as a whole I find the poetry somewhat flat. I did enjoy becoming acquainted with a Vietnamese woman poet and appreciated Mr. Balaban's "Endnotes" at the back of the book.

As a Vietnamese who has read Ho-Xuan-Huong before, I was rather excited to buy this book. Finally, the rest of world will be able to share with me in appreciating both Mrs. Ho's beautiful poetic descriptions of the Vietnamese landscape and people, and also her clever use of humor and words to create second meanings. Second meanings that bravely criticized the injustices of her society and, at the same time, made wise observations on the human condition that I've found so enriching. Unfortunately, John Balaban's efforts fell short of exposing the wonders of these poems to those who don't speak Vietnamese. The way Mr. Balaban put the book together I can see that he does understand and appreciate the poems. However, just like another reviewer observed, Mr. Balaban seemed to have translated the poems literally word-for-word. As a result, the essential second meanings that made these poems great are lost. At any rate, without prior exposure to the Vietnamese language, customs, traditions and idioms, the average Non-Vietnamese reader will not be able to fully enjoy the poetry in this book. In the end, the only redeeming quality of this book is that it actually includes the poems written in the original Vietnamese. Because of this, it is an invaluable reference for the student of Vietnamese studies.