• Burmese
Friday, June 13, 2025
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Irrawaddy
27 °c
Yangon
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Junta Watch
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Books
  • Donation
No Result
View All Result
The Irrawaddy
No Result
View All Result
Home News Burma

‘Profound Sympathy with the Oppressed Urges Me to Write’

The Irrawaddy by The Irrawaddy
November 21, 2017
in Burma
Reading Time: 5 mins read
0 0
A A
Maung Pyiyt Minn. / Dana Lixenberg

Maung Pyiyt Minn. / Dana Lixenberg

5.2k
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Maung Pyiyt Minn (b. 1953) lives in a middle-class house in a Yangon suburb. His living room is stacked high with boxes of pharmaceutical supplies from the small business he runs. In his garage, the bumper sticker on his car reads “Proud to be a poet.”

When did you start writing poems?

I have been writing poems since high school. When I started out, we wrote in a style called ‘four syllables.’ We composed segments made up of four syllables each. We’d then submit to magazines. The magazines would pick the ‘safe’ ones that would pass censorship. The magazines took poetry seriously and didn’t neglect young writers. These old-time editors were very respectable people who knew literature. If they selected your work, it meant your work was good.

RelatedPosts

How the Myanmar Military’s Propaganda Efforts Have Evolved Over the Decades

How the Myanmar Military’s Propaganda Efforts Have Evolved Over the Decades

June 11, 2025
904
Fraternal Facade: The Illusion of China-Myanmar Brotherhood at 75

Fraternal Facade: The Illusion of China-Myanmar Brotherhood at 75

June 10, 2025
839
Will Myanmar’s Military Replace Its Embattled Leader?

Will Myanmar’s Military Replace Its Embattled Leader?

June 6, 2025
2.5k

What do you do for a living?

I’ve had a lot of different jobs. I’ve been a fruit vendor, merchant, taxi driver, a black market dealer, a traditional medicine pharmacist. I’ve dealt with so many kinds of people. They affect your poems. The way people talk and behave affects your work. They may not be necessarily inspirational. But they give you raw material.

You have said that “poetry is the noblest profession” – why?

You cannot make a living by writing poetry in Burma. Impossible. We write poems out of sheer love, without any material expectation. According to Eastern philosophy, if you devote yourself to something out of love alone, without any other expectations, your mind will be serene, free of jealousy or greed. Our mind becomes pure in this way, without sin. Therefore, a Burmese poet’s mind is like a saint’s mind when he is writing poetry. That is why I think poetry is the noblest profession.

How do you get your inspiration?

Our country is a strange one. When we were starting out as poets, people were under repressive dictatorship. We felt what are bad habits, what is unfair, what is bullying. So we sympathized with the oppressed. And we developed a habit to take the point of view of the oppressed when we wrote. As I became older, I became even more aware that injustice and oppression are everywhere in the world. With this newfound knowledge, even if I am not getting any inspiration, that profound sympathy with the oppressed urges me to write.

On creativity?

In any art form, as the artist becomes more mature and more knowledgeable, his creative power becomes stronger. You always start out by imitating others. Later, you try to outdo others by thinking of better words and expressions. That is how your creative power becomes stronger.

How about craftsmanship?

When I write, I want to put voices, colors, and views that are not used by others. In attempting that, I may end up using some expressions, dictions, tones that have not been seen by others. In Burmese poems, diction is the key. The poet must decide where the sentence will end, where the sentence will pause, etc. You must devise a system in which you decide with which word the sentence should end or make a transition to another sentence. The stronger your creative power is, the better you will get at this.

Your editing technique?

When we were young, we just wanted to send our poems to a magazine right away. Later you realize that yours will be compared to the others. That’s when I paid more attention to editing. I no longer wanted to rush it. It’s like a cat catching a mouse. Instead of getting done with it straight away, it has fun by tossing the mouse around, pouncing on it again and again. For poets, that process is a joyous process. We have fun by switching around words, adding or subtracting here and there. To get a good poem, editing is vital.

Do you have any foreign influences in your poetry?

When we moved from traditional rhyming poetry to a modern style that did not require rhyme, our bible was Pine Shadow, a thick anthology of poetry, with poetry by Shelly, Goethe and others. It was compiled and translated by our famous translator Maung Tha Noe. It included not just translated poems, but also analyses of them and biographies of the poets as well. For us who were fed up with four-syllable rhymes, which was the orthodoxy of Burmese poetry at the time, that fat book became our bible.

You had to live through censorship under the dictatorship. And now?

Dictators were not our elected leaders. There was so much unhappiness. It showed in our poetry. The readers, too, feel these things. Even if my poem is not that good, if they find the discontented voice, people will like it because it reflects their feelings. So a poet just had to express these feelings and his poems would already be half-successful among the people.

Now, in this liberalized time, many of these poets don’t know what, and how, to write. They will need time to adjust to the changing sentiment. Even younger generation poets now write totally differently from what we write. I think we will get something really new very soon in our poetry.

Can you tell us about the censorship?

To avoid the censor, we had to write obliquely. You developed skills to write things that would outsmart and outwit the censor. The censor was so paranoid that they would even ban the words ‘mother’ and ‘red’.

What did ‘mother’ and ‘red’ mean?

The censors generally assumed these words stood for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Similarly, expressions like “dark, gloomy sky” and “nebulous course/path” were not allowed. At first, you merely had to cover the censored lines with ink. Later, they demanded that all the censored materials must not be on the page at all, covered or not. So the magazines had to rip out the offending pages. If a reader found a missing page, they would automatically realize what had happened. That made the poets even more skillful.

How does this time of transition affect the poet?

You must write what you feel is right. We may not have to write obliquely. But you write the way you feel. Even without political motivation, a good poem will be a good poem. A beautiful poem describing the rain has no political motivation. It’s about rain and it’s just simply beautiful. If a poem reaches inside people’s minds and resonates with them, with or without politics, it’s a successful and good poem.

Authors’ Note: These interviews are excerpted from Burma Storybook, a poetry and photography book inspired by the documentary film of the same name, produced by Corinne van Egeraat and directed by Petr Lom. 

The English language hardcover edition of the book is for sale at Hla Day, Innwa Bookstore, Myanmar Book Center and the Strand Hotel.

A Burmese language-only paperback edition of the book is for sale through Yangon Book Plaza.

There will be a Free Open Air Screening of the Burma Storybook documentary film (82 min.) in Mahabandoola Park in Yangon on November 25 at 6 p.m. From Nov. 25 to Dec. 4, you can visit the interactive Burma Storybook Photo Exhibit at the Tourism Burma Building.

For more information: www.burmastorybook.com

Your Thoughts …
Tags: ArtsCultureHistory
The Irrawaddy

The Irrawaddy

...

Similar Picks:

Myanmar Junta Boss Attends Opening of Replica of Shan Palace Demolished by Previous Regime
Burma

Myanmar Junta Boss Attends Opening of Replica of Shan Palace Demolished by Previous Regime

by The Irrawaddy
May 13, 2024
13.3k

The old Kengtung Haw was a symbol of Shan identity until it was razed by the previous junta in 1991—a...

Read moreDetails
Six Key Points About Myanmar’s Newly Enforced Conscription Law
Analysis

Six Key Points About Myanmar’s Newly Enforced Conscription Law

by The Irrawaddy
February 12, 2024
11.8k

What does the legislation entail, and why is the junta implementing it for the first time since its promulgation 65...

Read moreDetails
Why Shan State’s Formidable Armies Have Shunned the Fight Against Myanmar’s Junta     
Guest Column

Why Shan State’s Formidable Armies Have Shunned the Fight Against Myanmar’s Junta     

by Bertil Lintner
March 14, 2024
11.6k

After six decades of political wrangling, assassinations and opium trading, Shan forces remain bitterly divided, lacking a common vision for...

Read moreDetails
Myanmar Civil Society, Burmanization, and the Bars and Coffee Shops of Thailand
Guest Column

Myanmar Civil Society, Burmanization, and the Bars and Coffee Shops of Thailand

by R. J. Aung and Tony Waters
November 18, 2023
10.9k

After the 2021 coup the donors, NGOs and CSOs of ‘Peaceland’ decamped from Yangon to Thailand, but their Western, ‘we-know-best’...

Read moreDetails
Commentary

Myanmar’s ‘White Flag Military’ in Chaos in Northern Shan State

by Aung Zaw
January 11, 2024
9.5k

Independence Day celebrations last week were overshadowed by the biggest defeat in the Myanmar military’s modern history.

Read moreDetails
Once Upon a Time in… Myanmar
Books

Once Upon a Time in… Myanmar

by David Scott Mathieson
October 14, 2024
9.2k

American photojournalist Greg Constantine’s ‘Ek Khaale’ project assembles old photos and documents to reclaim the Rohingya community’s identity.

Read moreDetails
Load More
Next Post
Buddhist monks walk past a banner of opposition leader and President of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) Kem Sokha at the party's headquarters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Nov. 17, 2017. / Reuters

China Supports Cambodia’s Crackdown on Political Opposition

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) and Myanmar Commander-in-Chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyitaw on Nov. 19, 2017. (Photo: Senior General Min Aung Hlaing / Facebook)

Myanmar Army Chief Travels to China

No Result
View All Result

Recommended

The Hidden Fallout From China’s Cross-Border Crime Crackdown in Myanmar

The Hidden Fallout From China’s Cross-Border Crime Crackdown in Myanmar

4 days ago
1.4k
How the Myanmar Military’s Propaganda Efforts Have Evolved Over the Decades

How the Myanmar Military’s Propaganda Efforts Have Evolved Over the Decades

2 days ago
904

Most Read

  • Civilians in Need as Arakan Army Advances on Kyaukphyu

    Civilians in Need as Arakan Army Advances on Kyaukphyu

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Advances into Karenni State

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Jade Hub Burns as Junta Counteroffensive Penetrates Hpakant

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • China Defends Myanmar Junta on Human Rights at UN

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Myanmar Junta Reinforces Kyaukphyu as AA Nears China-Backed SEZ Hub

    shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Newsletter

Get The Irrawaddy’s latest news, analyses and opinion pieces on Myanmar in your inbox.

Subscribe here for daily updates.

Contents

  • News
  • Politics
  • War Against the Junta
  • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
  • Conflicts In Numbers
  • Junta Crony
  • Ethnic Issues
  • Asia
  • World
  • Business
  • Economy
  • Election 2020
  • Elections in History
  • Cartoons
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Commentary
  • Guest Column
  • Analysis
  • Letters
  • In Person
  • Interview
  • Profile
  • Dateline
  • Specials
  • Myanmar Diary
  • Women & Gender
  • Places in History
  • On This Day
  • From the Archive
  • Myanmar & COVID-19
  • Intelligence
  • Myanmar-China Watch
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Food
  • Fashion & Design
  • Videos
  • Photos
  • Photo Essay
  • Donation

About The Irrawaddy

Founded in 1993 by a group of Myanmar journalists living in exile in Thailand, The Irrawaddy is a leading source of reliable news, information, and analysis on Burma/Myanmar and the Southeast Asian region. From its inception, The Irrawaddy has been an independent news media group, unaffiliated with any political party, organization or government. We believe that media must be free and independent and we strive to preserve press freedom.

  • Copyright
  • Code of Ethics
  • Privacy Policy
  • Team
  • About Us
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Burmese

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Burma
    • Politics
    • World
    • Asia
    • Myanmar’s Crisis & the World
    • Ethnic Issues
    • War Against the Junta
    • Junta Cronies
    • Conflicts In Numbers
    • Junta Watch
    • Fact Check
    • Investigation
    • Myanmar-China Watch
    • Obituaries
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Commentary
    • Guest Column
    • Analysis
    • Editorial
    • Stories That Shaped Us
    • Letters
  • Ethnic Issues
  • War Against the Junta
  • In Person
    • Interview
    • Profile
  • Business
    • Economy
    • Business Roundup
  • Books
  • Donation

© 2023 Irrawaddy Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.