Where the poet sleeps

      Once outside the town of Ben Tre, Road 26 winds its way through coconut gardens, orchards and rice fields.
Some 34 kilometers from the Mekong Delta province’s capital is the mausoleum of renowned poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu (1822-1888). One of the southland’s most influential men of letters, he was also a prominent teacher and herbalist. Streets throughout the country are named for the legendary bard.
He was a symbol of patriotism during the struggle against the French colonialism in southern Vietnam. As such a famous poet, Chieu was invited to cooperate with the French and the colonist-backed government many times, but he always refused.
Chieu also secretly supported resistance forces at the time and wrote many poems calling on the patriotism and fighting spirit of the people.
His most famous work is Luc Van Tien, a semi-autobiographical poem about an idealistic young man in Vietnam’s feudalistic society and Van te nghia si Can Giuoc (Eulogy for the Martyrs of Can Giuoc). In 1861, a group of 20-30 farmers from the town of Can Giuoc resisted the early days of the French invasion by attacking a garrison of soldiers. They killed several French soldiers and the mandarin who worked for the French, but all were subsequently executed, prompting Chieu’s eulogy.
At the mausoleum, lush foliage and flowers surround the tomb in the shade of several large trees.
The three-entrance gate of the mausoleum, built in 1972 and refurbished in 2000, bears the traditional Vietnamese architecture of temples and pagodas. Before 1972, Chieu was buried at a small grave in Ba Tri, one kilometer away.
Inside the mausoleum, the central section is for worshiping the poet while the commemoration section displays documents about his life. On the left rear of the old section are the tombs of the poet and his wife. Next to their tombs is the grave of Nguyen Thi Ngoc Khue, known as Suong Nguyet Anh (1864-1922), their daughter, a famous poet and journalist in the early 20th century.
Near the mausoleum is a large banyan tree with snakelike roots and sweeping branches. Local residents say it is more than 300 years old.