San Francisco-based poet and former City College student, Nguyen Do, held a poetry reading Nov. 3 in the Cultural Awareness Center as a bilingual event.
Do read aloud poems in his native Vietnamese language. Paul Hoover, a fellow poet and San Francisco State creative writing professor, read Do’s poems in English. Do and Hoover collaborated on the anthology, “Black Dog, Black Night: Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry.”
“You can really hear the music of the poem in the Vietnamese,” says Hoover, who also read some of his poems.
Do was a censored poet in his native country, Vietnam, until recently. Hoover explained that Do’s treatment is complicated because Do is not a member of the powerful Vietnamese Writers Association.
“He was an outsider in Vietnam, and authorities asked him to leave the country in the 1990s,” Hoover says.
Outsider poets have been imprisoned in Vietnam. “That’s why he is in California,” Hoover says.
Vietnamese authorities have since taken on a friendlier tone towards Do since they received word Hoover and Nguyen are translating the works of a revered Vietnamese poet, Nguyen Trai, into English.
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Nguyen is now allowed to visit Vietnam again.
“When I write, I don’t care if I am censored,” Do says. “Real writers do not care if they are censored. You have to talk with your imagination.”
Do’s most recent projects include editing and translating “Beyond the Court Gate, Selected Poetry of Nguyen Trai” with Hoover. He is also currently translating his own book of poems, “New Darkness” into English.
Do has come a long way since leaving City College. He was an established poet in Vietnam when he came to the U.S. in 1999. He says when he began his education in City College’s ESL program in 2000, he started at the lowest level of ESL and worked his way up.
According to City College history professor, Riad Bahhur, Do is recognized by the Poetry Foundation of New York for his contribution to poetry of the world.
“He was very engaged and spoke up a lot in class,” Bahhur remembers of his former history student. “He was lively.”
