VISION

&
THE BONES WILL CROW:An
insiders view

By:JEEXI ANN GASAPO SPSTE8

 Feraya
Born in Kalaw, Shan State and referring to
herself as simply “Feraya,” the writer has
a collection of powerful poems on a
variety of issues plaguing her homeland.
“Genocide is not the Answer” is a
particularly poignant piece as Feraya
shows her support of diversity by calling
ethnic groups “the jewels of Burma.”
Her strong views of the country treating the
ethnic groups poorly by “stifling them,
controlling them, oppressing them” come
through in her writings and help to paint an
image of the ongoing ethnic battles in the
country.
The author in the poem entitled Vision talks about
the beautyand grace of the country, Burma, and its
people. However, the speaker thinks ofall the
negativity bounding the kind and gentle people of
the country.Moreover, the author has high hopes
that the people will wake and rise upagainst the
evils emanating from the government.
Bones Will Crow: An Insider's View
Posted by Arc, 17th October 2012

Bones will Crow comes from Moe Zaw's poem Moonless Night.
Co-editors ko ko thett and James Byrne thought the Burmese idiom
fitting for their anthology of '15 Contemporary Burmese Poets.'
Bones will Crow means chicken comes home to roost - whatever
you give, you get back. The Burmese use it to express their
resentiment, the resentment against injustice. To be honest I did not
find it very tasteful when I heard it for the first time. Since then I
have acquired a taste for Bones. My ears have been tamed. My lips
got used to saying it.
Politics in Burma of 2012 are poles apart from that of
2009, when James Byrne conceived an anthology of
Burmese poetry. The censorship doesn't exist any more.
The subversive names that most people did not dare to
utter before are on the front pages of journals and
magazines today. Most political prisoners, including 88
generation students, have been released and most
activists are now being integrated into the mainstream
political process. Shall I dare say, Bones will Crow had
adumbrated such changes
 Six months after the title Bones will Crow was set in June 2011, a
gruesome mass murder that'd happened in northern Burma twenty years
ago, that seemed to have disappeared from history, was unearthed. In the
winter of 1991-92, some members of All Burma Student Democratic Front,
ABSDF, the resistance student army, were accused of spying for the
regime by their own organization. The branded student rebels were subject
to countless ways of dehumanization - think of mutilation of limbs, burning
bitumen on your belly, keeping you barely alive under harsh weather
conditions - until they were forced to submit to false testimonies at the
ABSDF (North) camp in Pajawng, next to the Kachin Independence Army
(KIA) Headquarters in Laizin, close to the Chinese border. Of about seventy
who were literally cooped in inhuman conditions and brutally tortured for
months, more than forty were executed medieval-style right in front of their
inmates
 Htein Lin, a London-based artist, whose contribution had been
instrumental in the publication of Bones, is one of the survivors
of what is now known as the Northern Massacre. In December
2011, he became the first to give out the lowdown in the
first-person narrative on his magazine, kaungkin.com. Following
him, Burmese blogger Aung Moe Win chronicled the events in
ghastly details in a series of articles titled, Bones Have Crowed
in the North. When I came across those accounts, I told James
Bones was the caw of the day
As a poet I miss the forerunners of Burmese
khitpor poetry, Phaw Way, Maung Chaw Nwe
and Myay Chit Thu. They have long been dead
but the creative capital they had put into
contemporary Burmese poetry in the 1970s
has been manifested in Bones will Crow. Don't
I hear their bones crowing?
I don't have much to say about my poems in Bones. Perhaps
no anthology would do justice to any thirty-year career but
Bones no doubt is a handsome compensation for my life tied
down by poetry. For this I would like to thank James Byrne
and ko ko thett for their dedicated translation of my poems. I
am also grateful to Arc for making this happen. My teacher
Maung Tha Noe and my friend Zeyar Lynn need a special
mention as their books and essays on Western poetics have
been influential on my poetical path
There is another reason why I don't want to sing a
gladly tune to my own pieces in the book. I am very
pleased with the inclusion of Aung Cheimt, Thitsar
Ni, Maung Chaw Nwe, Maung Pyiyt Min, poets
before me, and Maung Thein Zaw, Moe Zaw, Moe
Way and Maung Yu Py, poets after me. On the
other hand, I am not over the moon about my
induction to Bones as poets in the stature of Maw
Rousseau, Thukamaing Hlaing and Ne Myo whose
works, more than my own, deserve a place in any
anthology are not in the book for various reasons
At least I can say that I have done 'something' as
my efforts in poetry were not just 'a haystack
fire' but a long-burning torch, the flame of which
has spread from within myself across my own
land into an international arena. Bones can also
be seen as door into that arena for up and
coming Burmese poets. As such my advice to
any junior poets is that you take poetry seriously,
not just for fun. Study poetics assiduously and
do your 'homework
 am excited about the UK book tour. I have some experience
reading in international festivals, twice in Seoul, once in
London and in some other European cities. Yet this occasion
is especially for Bones. I am thrilled to join two other Burmese
poets on a poetic journey. I am already delighted at the
prospect of meeting members of audience who might not
know where Burma is or what Burmese language is all about
but having a chance to display to them what Burmese poetry
is all about in the first place. No doubt the rewards of new
experience I will gain from new exposures, exchanges and
symposiums will never leave me until the end of my career