The Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh once mused, “I dabbled in verse and it became my life.”

Some people probably wish they were the ones uttering such beautiful sentiment, and the chosen few among us may even come close to living it. For my part, I realized long ago that the only word that might remotely apply to me is “dabble.” Still, I love reading poetry and can’t resist, from time to time, to jot down a couple of stanzas of my own, whenever I’m fortunate enough to feel the inspiration.

My affinity to verse, I believe, is rooted in the fact that my childhood language is rich in musicality. With as many as six distinct tones, Vietnamese lends itself to the natural cadence and rhythm that define traditional poetry. In fact in Việt Nam in the old days, poetry was not merely read, but sung. Nowhere was this more evident than in folk poetry (ca dao) which gave rise to the sweet lullabies that soothed us to sleep during our earliest years.

I recently discovered, stashed in a box of old papers, a folder that contains many short poems I had written over the years. On a whim, I decided to send a few of those out to some journals and see if anyone would want to publish them. To my delighted surprise, three of my poems have been picked up for publication in the past month, which I’m happy to share with you now.

The first poem was the one I used in my collection of stories titled In the Shadow of Green Bamboos, published in 2020. It is reprinted in the May 2022 issue of Better Than Starbucks, a quarterly Poetry and Fiction Journal. The title of the poem is When I’m Gone, and you can read it in the online edition by clicking HERE.

The second poem, titled Sunset Nostalgia, is published by Mount Hope Magazine at Roger Williams University in their June 2022 issue. Click HERE to read the online edition. Be sure to scroll down the main column to the Poetry section toward the bottom of the page.

The third title, Long Night, is actually a new poem that came to me recently after watching a news report on the war in Ukraine. It is published by Tipton Poetry Journal in their Spring 2022 edition that just came out. The online edition is posted on ISSUU at this link HERE. The ISSUU has a format similar to YouTube. Make sure you go to the bottom right corner of the ISSUU display to click on the FULL SCREEN icon for a legible display, then right-click to Page 4 where my poem is.

I hope to have more poems published in the next few months to share with you. In the meantime, enjoy a wonderful summer and whatever you choose to do, stay safe, healthy, and happy!