Black Stars

A beautifully rendered translation by Vietnamese poet Ngo Tu Lap and acclaimed American poet Martha Collins, Black Stars introduces a man who is both attached to his war-haunted childhood home and deeply conversant with contemporary global life.

With poems 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. From the young man reflecting on his village childhood, to the seasoned man observing a postmodern urban world, Lap’s work reveals a dual consciousness. Like the self and the universe—two almost incomprehensible entities—we see Lap’s landscapes grow wider before they narrow: 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.”