Featured Poem: One Night in Tay-Ninh, Việt Nam, 1952 by Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis

04 April 2011
Featured Poem: One Night in Tay-Ninh, Việt Nam, 1952 by Lawrence-Minh Bui Davis
One Night in Tay-Ninh, Việt Nam, 1952

Một dêm nhà bị bắn                One night the house is shot into
và có lựu đạn thảy vào.           and a grenade is thrown into.

The translation is rough.
She doesn’t conceive of herself
in the first person or the third.
She never thinks “I did this”
or “she felt that.”

She simply
remembers
“in the fall, moved away,”
“ran to the store that morning,”
“breathed,”
“heard.”

She is very young at the time of the attack,
only six.
She has no idea
why someone would shoot or
throw a grenade into the house
or why the family’s chickens
would run away only

to reappear
asleep
in the branches of lychee trees
in the woods behind the house.

Her parents are unsurprised.
Farmers have always trained their chickens
to run skyward up tree trunks.
When soldiers come calling,
as they have for a thousand years,

something
always survives.


LAWRENCE-MINH BUI DAVIS’s poetry and fiction have appeared in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, The Literary Review, New York Quarterly, AGNI online, Fiction International, The Louisville Review, and Pedestal Magazine. A founding editor of The Asian American Literary Review, he is at work on his first novel.
  • Japanese Culture Writer/ Researcher Wanted for Iconoculture
    Do you enjoy observing and writing about the local Japanese culture? Iconoculture's team of writers/researchers around the globe possess a deep understanding of the…
  • Central Institute of Classical Tamil Doctoral/ Post-Doctoral Fellowships 2012-2013 (Rs.12,000-Rs.18,000 monthly grant | India)
    Deadline: 16 August 2012In order to promote scholarship in Classical Tamil, the Central Institute of Classical Tamil proposes to award Doctoral/ Post-Doctoral…
  • Ekphrasis India's 2nd Poetry Writing Contest
    Deadline: 16 July 2012After the grand success of EI - Ekphrasis India's online magazine, we are glad to announce our second Poetry Writing Contest.Your dream to…
Related Opportunities:
Ranked: 500 highest-paying publications for freelance writers
The Freelance 500 Report (2015 Edition, 138 pages) profiles the highest-paying markets, ranked to help you decide which publication to query first. The info and links in this report are current. Details here.