Spring Essence: The Poetry of Hô Xuân Huong

Ho Xuan Huong was an 18th Century concubine with a very feminist determination to write about the seductive elements of life and in a number of the poems here you'll see why she must have caused quite a stir. Her sexuality simmers just below the surface of these poems, or in some cases, slyly evokes the delights she knows well in analogy. What is at first reading a song about sowing is an admonition to young women to luxuriate in the langour of passion, a kind of Bonnie Raitt take on the joys of gettin' jiggy with it.One of the interesting elements of the book's production is the presentation on the Viet Namese adaptation of Chinese caligraphy as well as the contemporary Viet Namese lettering, along with the English translation. The foreword is well documented and instructive. My only carp is that as with any translation from an expressive and lyrical language like Viet Namese, something gets lost. It hits you because you get an inkling why Ho Xuan Huong was so controversial, and you'd somehow like to get closer to her to really feel what made her senses reel. I don't speak Viet Namese, so more's the pity in my case.However, this is well worth exploring, very seductive stuff to share with a lover.

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This book is wonderful! Copper Canyon Press publishes the very best.

Very beautiful, but so much was lost in translation and over time.

These works are not produced by one person. They are " storage of social history"...And, I did not like the cover.

‘What does it imply’, Professor Kai asks me, ‘about the national psyche when its national literary heroine is a prostitute?’ ‘Vietnam’s national heroine a prostitute?’ I am alarmed (…)‘It says everything about the Vietnamese, understand – no?’ say the professor in his lilting pedantic rambling. ‘She is a prostitute. The things she has done are not commendable great deeds. But don’t you see it is the reason why she does things. They are selfless acts. Sacrifices. Everything is there. You must read it’.Andrew X. Pham ‘Catfish and Mandala’What can I add to this recommendation?Perhaps that it is a miracle that Hô Xuân Huong (1772 – 1822) wrote at all in a male dominated Confucian tradition. A tradition in which few women were tutored in the rigorous literary studies given to young men preparing for the imperial examines.Perhaps that it was surprising what she wrote, constantly questioning the order of things, especially male authority. In her time not only shocking but also personally risky.Perhaps that she wrote in ‘Nôm’, a writing system that represented the Vietnamese speech, rather than Chinese, the language of the Mandarin elite. Using the ‘Nôm’ gives her poetry a special Vietnamese dimension filled with aphorisms and speech habits of the common people.Perhaps most surprising that all her poems, written in the ‘lu-shih’ style, have hidden within them another poem with sexual meaning. Very unfortunately I don’t read any Vietnamese. But with the beautiful English translations of John Balaban I come a long way, and sometimes I can“see heaven upside-down in sad puddles”

Very nice to have the English, romanization, and original script all presented together.The translations seem fairly loose - however, they do an admirable job of preserving rhyming scheme and meter. I do wish there were explanations of the double entendres mentioned in the foreword presented with the text, or footnotes explaining the literal meaning of the words in Vietnamese.The poems themselves are mostly a pleasure to read, many with grin-inducing euphemisms and innuendoes, and several with substantial depth in terms of social and personal commentary. There are few that went over my head as a naive Western reader.Bumping this up to 5 stars because it's one of the nicest bilingual editions I've ever seen.

I'm giving this four stars to begin with for bringing Ho Xuan Huong's poetry into English. I couldn't find ANY other translations of her magnificent poetry. The GOOD: One needs to read the introduction, which is well written, to get some idea of the complexity of writing in Nom , speakingin polytonal Vietnamese and then trying to compress symphonic poetry into a monotone language. Huong was an ingenious genius andat least here we get a faraway glimpse to her flights. Yes, an immensity gets lost in translation, here more so than many others, still evenviewing shadows is better than never opening one's eyes. What could have been improved: The footnotes are at the End of the book, and since they do NEED to be read, to fully appreciate the poems,it would have been simpler and easier for the reader, if they were at the bottom of each poem. He often talks about double meanings, butthen becomes prudish and evasive about what precisely they mean. Inquiring poetry readers would like to know. The Bad....THE COVER! Ho Xuan Huong was an outspoken woman, who railed against conventions and conveniences. To depict a womenwith her bare breasts exposed and her FACE COVERED, that's American spin, not at all in the 'ESSENCE' of her blossomingSPRING poetry- a tag line on the back says, "Funding the publication of exceptional literary works"....AGREED this is exceptional, so HOWABOUT an Exceptionally Appropriate COVER! She wrote openly about sexuality, but it'd would be more in keeping with her poetry, to show a Vietnamese woman (including exposing her FACE) in the spring countryside of Vietnam....

Great poems I can't speak to the quality of the translation, but they read well in English. Worth reading.