After 1986, Vietnamese poetry witnessed a strong paradigm shift from the majestic epic echoes to the hidden corners of private life and worldly affairs, leading to the trend of “everyday-ization” of poetic language. In this context, Nguyen Duy emerged as a unique poetic phenomenon by seamlessly blending the traditional luc bat (six-eight) meter with a modern perspective, especially through the maximum utilization of colloquial reduplicative words. This article surveyed 153 poems across four poetry collections (“Mother and You”, “Distant Road”, “Returning”, “Dust”), thereby gathering statistics and classifying 44 colloquial reduplicatives, including disyllabic, trisyllabic, and quadrisyllabic reduplicatives. The analysis results show that this vocabulary class not only helps the poet break academic and conventional molds to vividly depict nature and human psychology, but also possesses highly evocative and expressive qualities, thereby conveying profound life philosophies. The research contributes to affirming Nguyen Duy’s talent as a master “wordsmith” and elucidates the vital role of popular language in the modernization process of contemporary Vietnamese poetry.

Keywords: Colloquial reduplicative words, Nguyen Duy’s poetry, Vocabulary, Reduplicative words.