Black Stars

Poems

Ngo Tu Lap, Martha Collins

• Publisher: Milkweed Editions
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781571319005
• Subtopic: Asian Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Simultaneously occupying past, present, and future, Black Stars escapes the confines of time and space, suffusing image with memory, abstraction with meaning, and darkness with abundant light. In these masterful translations, the poems sing out with the kind of wisdom that comes to those who have lived through war, traveled far, and seen a great deal. While the past may evoke village life and the present a postmodern urban world, the poems often exhibit a dual consciousness that allows the poet to reside in both at once. From the universe to the self, we see Lap’s landscapes grow wider before they focus: black stars receding to dark stairways, infinity giving way to now. Lap’s universe is boundless, yes, but also “just big enough / To have four directions / With just enough wind, rain, and trouble to last.”

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• I. The Universe and I
• The Universe and I
• Women from the 1960s (I)
• Women from the 1960s (II)
• The Midlands
• Calling the Season
• Cherry Garden
• Destiny
• The Captain
• The Utopian
• Darkness
• The Flanders Road
• MCMXCVI
• The Other Dream
• II. Night Flight
• Black Stars
• Invisible Chain
• The Slumber of Books (I)
• The Slumber of Books (II)
• That Blue Sky
• In the Night
• Viet Blood
• A Bullet Fired into the Night
• A Sandal Dropped in a Swamp
• Hanoi
• Bonn
• The Garret
• Hai Phong
• Little Lap-Tree
• Someday
• From Behind a Covered Window
• Empty Well
• Six Billion Minus One Equals Six Billion
• III. Road on the Earth
• Nightmare
• Praise for the Dead
• Evening
• By the Loiret River
• My Stories
• Not Speaking
• The Man with Big Eyes
• Your Hand, the Unending Season
• A Tree Has Fallen
• Change
• Road on the Earth
• NOTES
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS