About the author
Nguyễn Thiện Đerrick is a senior who considers themself from many places including Saigon Vietnam, Hue Vietnam, Salt Lake City Utah, McHenry Illinois, Springdale Arkansas, and Joplin Missouri. They currently are a Linguistics major concentrating in Historical Vietnamese Linguistics and Second-Generation Vietnamese-American lived experiences.
Description
The poem "Mẹ Tôi" (My Mother) is written in a script no longer used today called "Chữ Nôm." The script utilizes Chinese characters to depict Vietnamese words, and the script was used in Vietnam for centuries before the romanization of Vietnamese from Portuguese and French missionaries.
The poem is unreadable to anyone who hasn't studied this script before (which should be no one but the author of the piece). It is a snapshot of the author's mother's sacred life which is unknown to anyone but her children. This inability for the audience to comprehend the piece reflects the literal "untold" story, but it is a story the author wants the audience to see, honor, and celebrate without exposing their mother completely. Furthermore, the poem is written in a traditional style of Vietnamese poetry (or at least an attempt).