This week marks the convergence of a number of important dates: May Day, the end of National Poetry Month (April 30th), and the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon (also April 30th). So I thought I’d acknowledge all of them at once with the poetry of Ho Chi Minh. He was arrested as a spy in August 1942 by the Kuo Min Tang and put into a series of Chinese prisons, enduring harsh conditions. He wrote over hundred short poems in prison, mostly in quatrain form, and they have been translated by several English translators including Aileen Palmer, Timothy Allen, and Kenneth Rexroth.
Click on the small triangle or MP3 link above to listen to a selection of the poems, as broadcast this week on the Arts Express radio program, heard on WBAI-FM and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
