When I read So'ng Viê.t-Ðàm Giang's poem Em Ðe.p Nhu' Tho' for the first time, my heart leaped.

You gentlemen out there, if you have ever fallen in love, and who hasn't?, you will understand what I am talking about. You and I could have written just such a poem because we know, intuitively or from our own male experience, that this is precisely what we would want to say to the woman of our dream, to our sweetheart. And it does not matter whether that sweetheart is your wife or not.

With that said, I assume from here on that anything I say is what you, gentlemen, would want to say as well, so that my feelings are the surrogate of yours. My final assumption is that you were, or are in love with a beautiful woman or the woman of your dream. Failing that, you might be missing out on some of my points and expressions. So here we go, let us join our voices, together in unison, and our chorus is just one voice.

This poem is one of the most sensuous and sensual poems ever written in the literatures that I know, including French, English, American, and Vietnamese, although in the latter case I have to admit my lacuna and weakness.

The subject of this oeuvre is the woman and the love she inspires in her man.

Em Dep Nhu Tho' is literally what it means, and then some. Throughout the work, Song Viet-Dam Giang has exhibited her incomparable gift of capturing the poetic quality of the topic, the beauty and romance of being a woman, and the intense emotion of love she has aroused in the heart of a man. We could easily idealize the subject and speak of the woman and the man. Or we could, if we so choose, personalize the experience and think of our own woman and our own self.

I choose the latter for the genuineness, the intimacy, and immediacy of the experience as well as the intensity of emotion that only the first person can capture. But the most important reason is that nothing short of treating the poem in the first person will do full justice to such a work of art as the one Song Viet-Dam Giang has so graciously given us. And I am sure Song Viet-Dam Giang would not mind our interpretation one way or the other. Henceforward, I will refer to us all as the first person singular for these reasons and speak as if I am personally involved, although I know I speak for all of us gentlemen. Give me, therefore, your support in this our joint intellectual and emotional voyage. Are you ready? Let's go.

I see the poem as my own work. It is my voice to you, sweetheart. It is the intense emotion of love I feel for you that has inspired these verses.

Why are you a poem? Because you are my Muse, because you have given me the strength to speak, the feelings I feel, and the wonderful realization that this world still has someone like you. Because you fire up my imagination, and enrich my experience. Because you sharpen my creativity, and define my identity. Because you give me the meaning of my life. But more importantly, because you give me one compelling reason why this world is a marvelous place to be.

How can I not praise your freshness that delights, or your velvety eyes that bewitch? The freshness of you energizes my life, and gives it vitality, the zest for life, and the joy of living. Your soft eyes, sweetheart, with their velvety feel soothe my soul, and nurture me when I hurt. How can I not adore your ebony hair that enchants, and your smile that melts my heart? I just keep thinking of the days when hand in hand we take our leisurely strolls along the beach, your hair swirling and singing in the wind. And with that angelic smile of yours, my dear, your every wish is my command.

I can never tire of admiring your gorgeous self, in person or in my mind's eye. I can never find enough words to express the bubbling energy you create in me, and the excitement I feel just to think about you. And your fresh rosy lips never fail to invite my passionate kisses, which I give freely, unconditionally, and rapturously.

I could never have written such inspired words as this poem, dear sweetheart, but for the breath of life which you have blown into my heart and mind, and which guided my hand. You and you alone can set my heart fluttering with happiness. And you and you alone can send me to the land of dreams, where everything is possible, and where everything is as you wish it to be.

All these and more are YOU, the one and only YOU that I give my life for, sweetheart.

You are the stuff dreams are made of. And because you are my dream, you create me in your dream, I live my life in yours, and you and I are a dream couple in all the senses of the expression.

I wish I could just snatch you from where you are and carry you off to the world of our dream. This is the world I want to you to have, the world where I give you my heart, my soul, and my mind. It is the world of bliss that we together create and enjoy from here to eternity.

Sweetheart, I give you my passionate heart, my undying love, and my entire being, for you deserve nothing less. Let us together make for ourselves an unending string of happy days steeped in the love of each other, secure in the knowledge that we belong to each other forevermore.

You are my beautiful poem, sweetheart.

And now, let us leave the soliloquy I have just created for us all, gentlemen.

So'ng Viê.t-Ðàm Giang is without a doubt one of the most inspired poets I have had the good fortune and honor to know. She never ceases to amaze me with her uncanny talent to penetrate the deepest recesses of the human heart, male or female (1), and give it a delightful, insightful, and wonderful expression in her inimitable and almost divine way.

Our lives are all enriched by her gift and great artistic sensibility.

As a tribute to Sóng Viê.t-Ðàm Giang's gift, let us close with our male message of love to our women, and give them the ultimate song of love and praise, Em Ðẹp Như Thơ.