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Vietnamese Poetry

 

Same Eyes, Different View

Poem written by Indigo Williams about returning to Vietnam for the first time.


(Poem written in 2002 about returning to Vietnam for the first time, slightly revised and dedicated to you).

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Same eyes, different view  

I feel like I should somehow belong to you

In your Vietnamese eyes do I have a somewhat similar face

I've spent a lifetime identified as the same as you by that construct called 'race'

But behind my eyes is a white puzzled gaze

Built from a white upbringing and western  ways

And Vietnamese language, I don't know

I wasn't even aware that pho doesn't rhyme with go

But I've come home to find a sense of  family that I am told has been  lost

And I play out this script through much emotional struggle and cost

I'm visiting Vietnam for Tet and don't know if I belong

So many cultural misunderstandings make me feel wrong

An orphan with no family relying on strangers to be kind

I fear I don't really know what or who I want to  find

I've returned to Saigon/HCMC, part excitement and  part fear

Chuc Mung Nam Moi or Happy New Year

 

Please visit these sites:

35th Anniversary Writings by Adopted Vietnamese

Includes poetry

and adoptee blogs page

General Poetry by Vietnamese

Mountain River

Vietnamese Poetry from the Wars, 1948–1993

Edited by Kevin Bowen, Nguyen Ba Chung, and Bruce Weigl
Introduction by Nguyen BA Chung

 Three Poems
by Lam Thi My Da
translated by Martha Collins and Thuy