Ghost Book

36 | World Literature Today Burmese nationalism and the preservation of cultural symbols—perhaps expectedly under the strong arm of British colonization—and the preservation of a climbing rhyme first used in the pagan era (its rhyme scheme operated a 4-3-2 rhyming pattern of four syllables per line, the last or fourth syllable of the first line rhyming with the third syllable of the next line and the second syllable of the third line, and so on, usually ending with a line of seven syllables). Essentially, though it reverbed an old poetic form, Khit San was Burma’s first “experimental” poetry movement, notable for the inclusion of everyday language. Born around the turn of the twentieth century, Min Thu Win and Zawgyi were leading proponents of Khit San, and they (along with Thakin Kodaw Hmaing, considered a national genius, and Dagon Taya) are seen as the grand forefathers of modern Burmese poetry. Khit San was to dominate Burmese poetry for the next thirty years. After Burma’s independence in 1948, until the military takeover in 1962, Burmese poets frequently argued over a melting pot of nationalist , political, and ideological principles. Ironically , this was at a time when Burmese literature had its highest level of political independence and when its poetry was being increasingly influenced by international translation (government sponsored/censored, as much as Burmese translation is, but a progressive move nonetheless ). Importantly, this period also dawned “The New Writing” movement, led by Dagon Taya, which introduced the Marxist-overtoned “Poetry for the People” (a vision later manipulated by the military, which labeled and marshaled all writers as “literary workers”). Dagon Taya’s vision for “New Writing” was influenced by student and proletariat uprisings in the 1930s and promoted art as “for the people” and not for the bourgeois, or “art for art’s sake.” It was an altogether different aesthetic than the day-to-day ritualizing poems of Khit San. But if Khit San was flawed, then “The New Writing” had shortcomings , too—the worst of it was soapboxing propagandism and the best was still entrenched in political camouflage. What is more certain is that Burmese literature from this point onward became inextricably linked to politics, to the extent that when we sweep forward to what is happening today, most translations of Burmese poetry are from human-rights organizations, who are (rightly) campaigning for the release of imprisoned Burmese artists, whose work may be important, politically and viscerally, but is often far from being the most inventive poetry. All modern Burmese poetry can be seen to have a level of dialogue with Khit San or “The New Writing.” But also highly influential to what is happening now is Khit Por (“the modern poetry”). Since the end of the Cold War and the demise of Communism, “New Writing” quickly lost its impetus and Burmese poetry regressed for a while under the political watchtower of the Burmese Way to Socialism, which feigned support for poetry while trying to suffocate anything that was “detrimental” to the Burmese Socialist Program (and, really, anything could be seen to be Khin Aung Aye has published eleven collections of poetry. Time Train from the World’s Shore was his first book, and his early collections reveal a somewhat more traditional approach to poetry—exemplified by four-syllable metered verse—steadily becoming more influenced by modernism. Khin Aung Aye is now regarded as one of the key postmodern poets to emerge from Khit San. He lives in Bangkok and recently read his work in England, Germany, Finland, and South Korea. Ghost Book Khin Aung Aye In a children’s geography textbook, I read In the long distance of human history, I read In the woods of mangoes in the dark monsoon clouds, I read In my decades of drifting across the seven seas, I read In the events that are stuck in my throat, I read In the two minutes before drowning, I read In the fairytales and satellite news, I read In the trickeries of feigning fate, I read In the bends of life preserved in formalin, I read Behind the curtain dark purple, behind the sets, I read I read How plentiful I’ve read

Art · Burmese · Linguistics · Literature · Nationalism · Poetry · Political science · Politics · Rhyme · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · History · Law · Philosophy