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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><b>Masters Tea, Berkeley
College<br>
</b>4:00 P.M., Tuesday, April 26*<br>
Co-sponsored by the <b>Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies<br><br>
<br>
<h3><b>Nguyen Chi Thien</b></h3><b><br><br>
Poet / Author, much of whose poetry was written during his imprisonment
by the Communist regime in Vietnam. Nguyen Chi Thien has since
immigrated to the U.S., where he now resides.<br>
See (
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/seas/NCTh.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.yale.edu/seas/NCTh.htm</a>)<br><br>
The presentation will feature Readings of selected poems by the author
(selections in original Vietnamese and English translation tba) and
introductory remarks by James C. Scott, Executive Editor, Yale SEAS
Publications<br><br>
<i>Hoa Dia-Nguc/Flowers from Hell </i></b>is a bilingual edition of Nguen
Chi Thien's poems selected and translated by Huynh Sanh Thong and
published by the Yale Council on Southeast Asia Studies in 1984.
These vivid poems were written during the author’s twenty-seven years of
imprisonment in the “re-education camps” of Vietnam from 1961 to1991. The
poet won the 1985 Poetry International Prize on the basis of this
book.<br><br>
”….these poems by Nugyen Chi Thien…represent a remarkable legacy.
We see no reason to apologize for the strident anti-communist tone of
this poetry, which was, after all, nurtured in Vietnamese prisons for
twenty years.<br>
….what is most memorable about these poems is not the target of their
cold rage….what is memorable in these poems is the quality of the anger,
the apocalyptic vision, the survival of dreams, hope, and love, the
minute observation of prison life, and above all, the survival of poetry
in Nguyen Chi Thien.<br>
….He tells us that he is ‘lost and lonely, bobbing up and down. / Smashed
boat, snapped paddle – stranded in the wreck,’ but adds ‘I still dream
it, keep dreaming it, my dream.’ He counts his ribs, but still
trades corn and cassava for tea, for ‘poetry thrives on tea at
night.’ For this man poetry was no luxury – it was the staff of
life.”<br>
(From “Welcome to the Lac-Viet” by James C. Scott, Chair and Executive
Editor, 1984)<br><br>
<b>*Berkeley College Masters House<br>
125 High Street<br><br>
</b><font color="#FF0000">See
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/seas/30Anniv.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.yale.edu/seas/30Anniv.htm</a> for a full summary of activities
being held in and around Yale in recognition of the 30th Anniversary of
the Fall of Saigon, April 30, 1975<br>
</font></blockquote>
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