Name: Thi Minh Trang Nguyen
Hometown: Hanoi, Vietnam
Current City: Paris
Occupation: Student and Creative Director of her own life
What does poetry mean to you?
Poetry is a special art form, literature that keeps you skipping a line to make your heart skip a beat. It’s also a soul connection built by a limited numbers of words, rhythm and metaphors.
Favorite Poem:
Blaise Cendrars’s « Tu es plus belle que le ciel et la mer ». This poem reads like an intimate letter addressed to everyone, a letter in which the poet profoundly embraces the feeling of being alive, the joy of travelling around the world, the courage of stepping outside of your comfort zone to live all the adventures, to take all the risks and to live life to the fullest.
Why do you like this poem?
Cendrars's subject is not new, but the way he conveys his love of life in this poem is distinctively impressive. The poem is a mix of tenderness and action, of nature and humanity, of the outside and the inside, of you and me.
Travelling is, in fact, a trade off between staying safe and taking risks. But the opportunities in travel are far more worth the sacrifice. Knowing that the world has so much to offer, you just go out there, just “know, sing, run, eat, drink, whistle and learn to travel”. “Just breath! Just walk! Just go!”
Because you love the world and the world definitely, has been, still, and will love you back.
It makes me think of the risk of travelling, as sometimes you have to pay the price of your own precious life. But even if you die, even if the risk is that big, would it be worth taking? Would you rather live a joyful adventurous short life rather or cope with the boredom of a life in which you feel lethargic and uneasy in the struggle with desire to step outside of your fears, especially when it’s breathtakingly beautiful out there?
"Tu es plus belle que le ciel et la mer" de Blaise Cendrars
Quand tu aimes il faut partir
Quitte ta femme quitte ton enfant
Quitte ton ami quitte ton amie
Quitte ton amante quitte ton amant
Quand tu aimes il faut partir
Le monde est plein de nègres et de négresses
Des femmes des hommes des hommes des femmes
Regarde les beaux magasins
Ce fiacre cet homme cette femme ce fiacre
Et toutes les belles marchandises
II y a l’air il y a le vent
Les montagnes l’eau le ciel la terre
Les enfants les animaux
Les plantes et le charbon de terre
Apprends à vendre à acheter à revendre
Donne prends donne prends
Quand tu aimes il faut savoir
Chanter courir manger boire
Siffler
Et apprendre à travailler
Quand tu aimes il faut partir
Ne larmoie pas en souriant
Ne te niche pas entre deux seins
Respire marche pars va-t’en
Je prends mon bain et je regarde
Je vois la bouche que je connais
La main la jambe l’œil
Je prends mon bain et je regarde
Le monde entier est toujours là
La vie pleine de choses surprenantes
Je sors de la pharmacie
Je descends juste de la bascule
Je pèse mes 80 kilos
Je t’aime