Morning at O’Hare Airport

Hai-Dang Phan translating Phan Nhiên Hạo from the Vietnamese

Fried coffee            elastic air                buttery smell
black trash cans         music mildly jazzy           sogginess
airplanes taking off           airplanes landing             I’m not glad
escalators rolling                 the crowd                  compromises
rainbows of words           for advertisement          waste of color
history                                  on television           waste of blood
crap food                   restrooms flush             noisily.

Hai-Dang Phan is an MFA student in poetry at the University of Florida. His translations of other poems by Phan Nhiên Hạo appear or are forthcoming in The Brooklyn Rail, Cerise Press, and Drunken Boat.

Phan Nhiên Hạo was born in Kontum, Vietnam in 1967 and immigrated to the U.S. in 1991. He is the author of two collections of poems in Vietnamese, Thiên Đường Chuông Giấy (Paradise of Paper Bells, 1998) and Chế Tạo Thơ Ca 99-04 (Manufacturing Poetry 99-04, 2004). A full-length, bilingual collection of his poetry, entitled Night, Fish, and Charlie Parker, was translated into English by Linh Dinh (Tupelo, 2006). Translations of his poetry have also been featured in the anthology Of Vietnam Identities in Dialogue (Palgrave, 2001) and Three Vietnamese Poets (Tinfish, 2001). He lives in northern Illinois, and edits the online journal litviet.

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In This Issue

Russell Jaffe
...No Punctuation Birthday
...Giant Caterpillar Sleepover
...Wild '93
A. Kendra Greene
...One Perfect White Swan
...Every Glass Flower in the Harvard Museum
Melissa Bobe
...Moscow
Joseph Mains and Donald Dunbar
...from Jorge: Sangre del Mar
D.E. Steward
...Octovre
Melanie Noel
...Warm Earth
...Cloud Trophy
Hai-Dang Phan
translating Phan Nhiên Hạo
...Paper Bells
...Morning at O’Hare Airport
...1858
Dana P. Diehl
...The Collectors
Chris Siteman
...The Bindery
M. Lewis
...Badness
Kyle Hemmings
...Bedbugs
...Gross Fable 2
Kari Larsen
...Van’s Friend in the City
David Shook
...Fourth Tenochitlan
...Like Asterisks
Jamie L. Olson
translating Irina Yevsa
...[Don’t whine, just eat your soup]
...South Station
...[How are things in Eden?]
Greg J. Hayes
...Drawn Boxes