While living four years in Vietnam, Steve Dolphy was transformed
by what he calls the countrys collectivist
culturewhere people have duties and obligations
to an extended family and other groupings. Those words
evoke the difference between the traditional Vietnamese
world and our own as well as any. They also point to the
source of these poems unassuming dignity. One who
has been to Vietnam will respond at once to Dolphys
evocation of tropical land- and cityscapes, but this reviewer
is especially moved by the poems formal discoverythe
sense of relationship upon which his haiku turn. Dolphys
haiku are not given to stark juxtapositions or all-too-obvious
ironies. The work moves from second to third line with a
grace that tends to remind us of deeper connection, a culturally
appropriate poetic. This is a world, for instance, in which
we behold old and new together:
August
cinema.
a stray bird flutters
across the credits
Often
a physical correspondencesimilar shapes in the following
casewill suggest a deeper harmony:
tomb-ruin
the soft-drink seller
unwraps a block of ice
Vietnamese
tombs are often in the center of rice fields. Sensitive
plant grows everywhere, and when one brushes against the
leaves of one, they fold up in a way resembling hands placed
together, Buddhist style. Here, it is as if the plants remind
us that they are part of the process that returns death
to life:
around
the grave
hands and sensitive mimosa
fold together
There
is also the palpable loneliness one feels as one-among-many,
especially on a day off:
weekend
alone
the show of hands
on the radio
Vietnamese
schoolchildren, though, often devote their free time to
additional lessons:
Sunday
afternoon nap
the sound of chalk
tapping on a blackboard
Dolphy
has written his book from life, in Hanoi (where he seems
to have spent some time studying the traditional art of
water puppetry), in the imperial capital Hue, wherelucky
manhe married; and subsequently in the U.K. The books
exquisite last poem shows that he brought a Vietnamese lightness
of touch home with him:
rainy
day
I wipe a thumbprint
from the fossil
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