First Poems from Viet Nam: Tran Anh Xuan

The Poems

The Saloon’s good friend, Michael H. Brownstein, was in Viet Nam during the spring of 2011 teaching first year English to rural farming students attending the Ha Noi University of Agriculture (HUA).

Vietnamese students receive a free education until age 11 and then each has to either pay on his or her own or find sponsors. Michael writes that his students come from farming families and a farming culture, but all feel the need to get a university education to help their villages. They feel they need English because they desperately desire American assistance.

None of Michael's students had ever written a poem in any language. He had them study “In Bed” by Jeff Flemming and "The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams. Then they wrote their first poems—in English.

Following the publication of the original poems, other young scholars from Southeast Asia have contributed works to this collection.

The Camel Saloon continues to be honored to present the results. Please enjoy these voices.

Notice of Copyrights

Original material on this site is copyrighted by the contributors. No original material may be copied or reused without the permission of the respective contributor. Text of "The Red Wheelbarrow" permitted under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Text of "in bed" from the chapbook, "Why Is My Lemon Tea Red?," (Nibbles Press) by Jeffrey Flemming. Used by permission of the author. Photographs of the Temple of Literature and Halong Bay are in the public domain. Class photographs collected and courtesy of Nguyen Sao Mai. Photographs of Agent Orange victims courtesy Michael H. Brownstein. "Images of Sa Pa" by Pham Nhu Trang. "Images of Viet Nam" by Korey Brownstein.

A Books on Blog™ publication issued June 2011 by The Camel Saloon.

First Poems
from Viet Nam

"When we become students"

The Poems

The Poets

The Imagists

Pages

Project Agent Orange

Project Agent Orange Poetry Blog

Contacts

Feedback

in bed
Jeff Fleming

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

Links

Page Rank

The English Class, Ha Noi University of Agriculture

Notice of Copyrights

First Poems from Viet Nam

"When we become students"

The Poems

The Poets

The Imagists

Pages

Project Agent Orange

Project Agent Orange Poetry Blog

Contacts

Feedback

in bed Jeff Fleming

The Red Wheelbarrow William Carlos Williams

Links

Page Rank

The English Class, Ha Noi University of Agriculture

Notice of Copyrights

First Poems
from Viet Nam

in bed
Jeff Fleming

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams