Welcome to the Debut
of the August Blog Bash 2012!
I am very much excited and honored to be hosting this new feature series... and it is a great way to end the summer! This Blog Bash is an impressive talent showcase of poets, artists, and writers/authors from all walks of life. For each day of this month, one individual will be featured here on this blog, at Origami Lotus Stones, my Twitter (hashtag will be #augblogbash), my Facebook community page, and on my blog page on Writing Our Way Home. Please be patient while I post on all platforms.
**Please note that all authors/artists have given me permission to post their work on the following platforms/sites I have just mentioned. Please do not plagiarize, modify, reproduce, or distribute any work without permission from the original authors/artists. Thank you!**
If you are interested in participating in this Blog Bash, feel free to check out the details here.
*******************************************
Today's Feature: Chris Galvin Nguyen
This elegy is a bittersweet and heartfelt dedication to the author's friend, which led me to tears. It was quite difficult to write a commentary for this poem because it is just simply stunning and raw. It reminded me of an outgoing college classmate who died from a fatal car accident, but she was a friend to me and everyone else around her. Anyway, not to take a detour from this poem here, we can see that there are many mixed emotions from this poem, ranging from kindness to companionship (love) to nostalgia to grief. The repeating image of "wine tasting/sipping" makes those emotions even more tangible. The movement of the poem branches out from the wine sipping to a sense of traveling. For instance, the reader gets a taste of the Vietnamese culture and landmarks starting from "maps [and] brochures" to "emperors' grand mausoleums" in Hue to a treat of "a lazy boat trip" on the Huong River and coffee at a "cozy cafe." The last stanza of the poem is poignant and focuses the reader on the present reality of "The tests. [and] More tests," highlighting the scary realization that life is transient and that the friend's dreams (the Vietnam travel "plans") were not fulfilled. Instead, cancer took her down to a different path, and the author is left with her dreams, which makes us wonder if the author is going to embark on that travel to Vietnam in memory of her friend.
While the mood in the previous poem is solemn, "Breathless," on the other hand, is lighthearted. I absolutely love the carefree sensation in this poem. At first, it felt as if though we are on a playground swing (Lines 1-5). Upon reading the poem a second time, I thought of roller coasters, and then the sense of flying when there is joy and when one is in love. No matter the scenario, a person--no matter the age--can be just as "breathless" if we choose to "fly" and "ignore [the] concern" of landing. It reminds me of that old saying: "The journey is greater than the destination itself," or somewhere along those lines...
Simply beautiful work, Chris! Thank you so much for sharing and being one of the contributors!
(NB: Text arrangement on MS PowerPoint by Kathy Uyen Nguyen. Please note that text/graphics will be in this format.)
To check out more of Chris' work, you can click on the following link(s): Chris Galvin (blog) "Memoir: Fire" at The Winnipeg Review (journal) "Flood Season" at Asian Cha (journal) @ChrisGNguyen (Twitter) Please do promote this new feature on Facebook, Twitter, etc.! Thanks so much for all the support! And look, my blog now has buttons (see below) to make your life easier! Come back tomorrow for a new artist/author feature!
No comments:
Post a Comment