From a Corner of My Yard: Poems of Tran Dang Khoa

Co-translated by Fred Marchant and Nguyen Ba Chung

Edited by Lady Borton and Trinh Ngoc Thai (former Vietnamese ambassador to France)

Tran Dang Khoa, one of Viet Nam’s most famous poets, has received many prestigious prizes, including the National Prize for Literature (2001). A prodigy of a poet, he sent these twenty poems in May,1968, at the height of the American war, as a birthday gift to Ho Chi Minh. This publication is in both Vietnamese and English, and contains some of Khoa’s most beloved and well-known poems. The volume also includes many photographs of the young poet, his parents, and the farm-yard that inspired this work. This book is distributed only in Vietnam, but copies are available in the US from the translator.

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There is a legend that originates in Vietnamese culture that claims in times of turmoil a country will be blessed with the existence of a child poet. Tran Dang Khoa is thought to have been the realization of that legend. Born in 1958 near Hanoi, Khoa lived in an area of the country that was a main route for soldiers heading south into battle. There are many stories that relate how the young poet would recite his verses to soldiers as they waited until morning to resume their journey. Khoa’s poetry is known for its simple and clear verse.

— Voices Education Project

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I was truly moved and surprised when I heard that, on the 116th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh’s birthday, the Ho Chi Minh Museum in cooperation with the Education Publishing House would publish my From a Corner of My Yard, which I had written by hand as a gift for Uncle Ho. . . . In May 1968 I chose twenty poems that I particularly liked at that time and presented them as a birthday present for Uncle Ho.

— Tran Dang Khoa, from “A Few Words to Readers” in From a Corner of My Yard