Memoir

Nguyen Bao Chan

I first met Marjorie Evasco in August 2002 at De La Salle University, where one of my readings took place in Asia – Pacific Conference – Workshop on Indigenous and Contemporary Poetry framework. Joining that conference was a special journey that would change my life, bringing me to different worlds I had never been to. I was a young Vietnamese poet, shy, trying to express myself through my poems, and curious to learn new things from others. My latest literary friends and the Filipino audience supported me very much. After my reading, I stayed on and had a good talk with some people at the meeting hall, and Marjorie was one of them. There were quite a few interesting questions. Somehow, I liked Marjorie’s most. She asked: “As a poet, what have you lost and what have you gained?”. I didn’t know that Marjorie Evasco was a famous poet at that time. I answered: “I have gained my true self. And sometimes I have lost my true self on the way to finding myself. I feel as though I have been going on a strange adventure, and I will never know the end of it”. We laughed over this as if we were already close friends, talking about something amusing. But although Marj might not have known, unintentionally, she taught me to think seriously about being a poet through her question.

Six years later, in July 2008, we caught up with each other again in Colombia. We were both invited to the Medellin International Poetry Festival. Finally, I knew who she was and how beautiful her poetry was. It was such a pleasure to have a chance to learn more about Marjorie Evasco as a great Filipina poet, as well as know about Marj, a lovely, tender, caring woman. We had spent lots of time talking, sharing our thoughts, and doing girls’ things together during our time in Medellin. I learned so much from her. I love Marjorie Evasco’s poetry. Creative, thoughtful ideas burst out from her pure and beautiful words. Her writings are certainly different from mine, but there are always some very similar things in our minds that make us understand each other so well. I have translated some of her poems into Vietnamese, and they have been well-received by Vietnamese readers. After Medellin, we kept visiting each other in Manila and Hanoi. We have joined in other literary events in Manila, Hanoi, and London.

Poetry brought us to each other naturally. We have become close friends, dearest sisters, for many years. We are two women who are so much in love with life, no matter what life has given us. We treasure every single thing in our lives, whatever we have gained, whatever we have lost. We have exchanged our experiences and stories. And we are always encouraged by each other. Marj has introduced me to her beloved family and friends and given me a cozy home in Manila and a warm place in her heart. I am grateful for that. I am fortunate and happy to have had her as my big sister, who loves me, and whom I love and trust always.

The poet, Nguyen Bao Chan, is a member of the Vietnam Writers Association. She trained as a cinema scenarist at the Hanoi Cinema and Theatre University, Bachelor of Arts, 1991, and currently works for Vietnam Television as an editor and a documentary filmmaker in the Arts and Culture. Her major publications are Burned River (Publisher of Vietnam Writers Association, 1994) which gained the Annual Award of the Vietnamese Literary and Arts Union in 1994, Barefoot in Winter (Youth Publications, 1999), and Thorns in Dreams (Vietnamese - English bilingual edition, The Gioi Publisher, 2010). Her works are also included in The Defiant Muse: Vietnamese Feminist Poems from Antiquity to the Present (Women’s Publishing House, Hanoi 2007) and many other poetry anthologies. She has read her poetry at literary festivals in Vietnam and abroad, including at the prestigious international Poetry Festival of Medellin, Colombia (July 2008), Poetry Parnassus Festival in London, United Kingdom (June 2012), Festival International des Poètes en Val de Marne in Paris, France (May – June 2013), Mel- bourne Writers Festival in Melbourne, Australia (August 2015), Poetry Translation Workshop in Ljubiana, Slovenia (November 2015); The Labyrinth of Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong, China (November 2017); and The World Poetic Recital Night: Poetry in A Non-Poetic World at The National Library of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (September 2019).