He is best remembered for his poems such as Bên kia sông Đuống, Lá diêu bông or the plays Kiều Loan and Hận Nam Quan.
Graduated from the Thăng Long High School in Hà Nội, Bùi Tằng Việt began his career as a writer and translator for the Tân dân xã publishing house which was owned by Vũ Đình Long, from that time he chose the pen name Hoàng Cầm which is the Vietnamese name of Scutellaria baicalensis – a fundamental herb in Traditional Chinese medicine.
[1] In 1944, due to the tense condition of the war, Hoàng Cầm returned to his hometown Thuận Thành and participated in the Việt Minh movement.
He began to organize cultural activities for the Vietnam People's Army from 1952 in the position of the Director of the Public Performing Company (Văn công) of the General Department of Politics.
[2] After the First Indochina War, Hoàng Cầm worked for the Vietnam Writers' Association from which he soon withdrew in 1958 because of his involvement in the Nhân Văn affair.