Beginning of Water by Tran Le Khanh and translated by Bruce Weigl

This is poetry from Vietnam.

Beginning of Water by Tran Le Khanh translated by Bruce Weigl is published by White Pine Press. This is a Book originally written in Vietnamese. This was published in 2021.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781945680434E12.

Tran Le Khanh’s Beginning of Water, translated from Vietnamese by Bruce Weigl, is a title of origin and motion. Water begins everywhere and nowhere: in rain, river, sea, birth, flood, memory. Vietnamese poetry in English often arrives through the shadow of war, diaspora, and historical rupture, but this book should also be allowed its elemental inwardness. The title suggests poems attentive to renewal, flow, and the first stirrings of perception. Published by White Pine Press, it gives the library another Vietnamese voice that can be read for clarity and depth at once. I would start with the water itself, letting it carry history without forcing every line to become explanation.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.