Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Message of support from well known Native American poet -- Susan Deer Cloud --

Dear Kyi May Kaung ....... I am teaching a writing course at Broome Community
College this semester, and I am going to take this in to share with my students. Some
of them don't care very much about reading and writing, and I tell them that a powerful
use of language is a central part of our freedom .....

This tore my heart apart. I hope that I can put this into one of my poems.

Thank you, thank you, thank you ...... as painful as reading this was for me,
it also heartens me when sometimes I want to give up in my own life. But I have never
had a life as hard as Saya's. What a sadistic act on the part of the army office. It reminded
me of the great writer Dostoevsky being taken out to be executed and then told he wasn't
going to be shot but sent to Siberia.

What is Saya's full name? I am about to go to youtube ..... but I won't be
able to understand the language, evidently .... even so, I can get some sense of him
and what he says.

I worry about my own country's freedom. This is important to people
all around the world.

With respect and caring for all of you ......

Susan Deer Cloud

Thanks Susan,

Note: Saya= guru or teacher.

His full name is U Win Tin, U, pronounced "Oo" means "Mr." for a man.

"Maung" = "master" for a younger man or if one wishes to refer to oneself humbly.

kmk

Burmese riddle verses from The Atlantic 1958

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1958/02/some-burmese-riddle-verses/640460/