“I Am Not Mad” is a translation of the Vietnamese poem, “Tôi Không Giận” by poet Lê Sông Văn, poignantly inspired by the life of Renée Nicole Good, an award-winning poet and mother who was fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026.
Lê Sông Văn draws specifically from the tragic irony of Good’s final words to the officer, “I’m not mad at you,” by stepping into a liminal space where the physical body dissolves into the metaphysical. While the imagery of bullets and triggers evokes a landscape of state violence, the poem swiftly transcends the geopolitical to seek a poetic and lyrical transfiguration, turning a lethal projectile into a “bird-wing hole” that allows the wind to sing through flesh. Within the tradition of poetry of witness, Lê Sông Văn does not merely document trauma; she transfigures it, stripping the bullet of its destructive intent and returning it to the sky as a creature of flight.
I was moved by the poem’s radical refusal of bitterness—the way it seeks a “fragile sun” even in our current adversarial landscape and insists that the world continues to be written with “light as ink.” This translation is an attempt to capture that precise, shimmering second where violence fails to silence the soul, proving that language does not just intervene in the “order of weaponry,” but surpasses it. By mixing “torn flesh with poetry,” Lê Sông Văn offers a testament to an endurance rooted not in anger, but in the soaring, indestructible autonomy of the human spirit. I hope this translation resonates with readers as a tribute to the power of the poetic voice to transform the scars of history into a universal, soaring light.
– Đặng Thơ Thơ
~
The sun should have set
when the bullet grazed by
like a stray bird
singing its morning song,
a sharp metallic note
But the heart of the morning,
Aged and proud,
remained still
The scratch on the sky’s skin
a speck of dust in the journey of fire
I saw the bullet coming
through the trembling light
a flare of poetry just sparked
from a still warm heart
I thought
The world would go on writing
with light as ink
Light flashed
and carved
a bird-wing hole
in my chest
I name the bullet after a bird
for it comes from the sky
bringing another windy season.
Blood mixed with sunlight
let wind sing through the body
wings flutter from a bullet hole
Poetry flies
I want back my rocking chairs,
Coastal jungle sounds
Solipsist sunsets*
Those statues in winter
those hands that pulled the trigger
those dry branches where birds just perched
There also lives a fragile sun
there also exist invisible cracks
about to let in the light
Mixing torn flesh with poetry
I ask myself
if language still has a chance
against the order of weaponry
The bird-wing bullet
a thin flare whispers
I write the poem’s final line
I am not mad *
.
*from Renée Nicole Wood’s poem, “On Learning to Dissect Fetal Pigs.”
Lê Sông Văn is a visual artist, writer, and poet. She was a founding editor and CEO of Việt Báo Houston (2004–2019) and previously served as art director for Việt Báo Daily News in Orange County, California. After immigrating to Sweden in 1988 and later moving to the United States in 1995, she became a frequent contributor to the literary webzine Da Màu. Her work is featured in the 2024 anthology Beyond Borders (Da Màu Press), which showcases voices from the Vietnamese diaspora. She currently divides her time between California, Texas, and Sweden.
Đặng Thơ Thơ is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist. She is the author of the novel Ai (2024), and two collections of short stories, The Winter Exhibition (Phòng Triển Lãm Mùa Đông: Văn Mới, 2002) and Possibilities (Khả Thể: Người Việt, 2014). She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Vietnamese literary webzine Da Màu, and president of the nonprofit Da Màu Foundation. Her work has been translated and featured indiaCRITICS, Words Without Borders, Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation (Iowa) andpublished in many Vietnamese magazines. She is also featured in the anthology Beyond Borders (Da Màu Press, 2024), showcasing stories from the Vietnamese diaspora. Đặng Thơ Thơ lives in California and is an active member of the LGBTQI.
