Distance and Disinterestedness: A poetry workshop with ko ko thett

Distance and Disinterestedness: A poetry workshop with ko ko thett

Distance and Disinterestedness: A poetry workshop with ko ko thett

Saturday, December 2 
9:30 am -12 noon
HQ 276, Humanities Quadrangle, 320 York St
(breakfast will be provided)

Registration is capped at 10 people.
Please register by emailing seas@yale.edu

How do you write history in a language that has no past tense? How do you write poetry in a world drowning in self-aggrandisement and selfies?

Poetry is often read for immediacy and poignancy. However, in their own distinct ways, a number of modern poets from Thom Gunn and Wisalawa Szymborska to American L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E and conceptual poets have strived to distance themselves from getting embroiled in the emotional trappings of the self in lyric poetry.

The notion of “disinterestedness” is part and parcel to the practice of Buddhism and, consequently, of haiku poetry. In this workshop we will focus on Gunn and Szymborska to explore poetic disinterestedness in all its modes: distance or detachment, justice, nonpartisanship, fairness, and you name it. We will also brainstorm possible means of addressing trauma and injustice, including injustice to Gaia, without being carried away. 

About the author

ko ko thett calls himself a poet of no place, a transnational poet, as opposed to a poet of place, a national poet. He was born in Burma, but he has no idea what Burmeseness entails — the untenable notion of Burmeseness/Myanmarness is a theme he explores in The Burden of Being Burmese (Zephyr, 2015). From 2012 to 2020, ko ko thett was country editor for Myanmar at Poetry International, and from 2017 to 2022, poetry editor for Mekong Review. His work in poetry translation has been recognized with an English PEN award. He currently lives in Norwich, UK.

Co-sponsored by Council on Southeast Asia Studies and Yale MacMillan Center

Selected publications 

Poetry collections

  • Head of the Herd: Every Image A Poem, forthcoming from Ethos Books, Singapore   
  • Bamboophobia, Zephyr Press, 2022
  • လေယူလေသိမ်း  [Accent], Seikku Cho Cho Books, Yangon, 2016
  • ဖူးဖူးသက်ရဲ့အင်တာနက်မိတ်ဆက် စာမျက်နှာ [Phoo Phoo Thett’s Page on an Internet Dating Site], Sour Dry Bitter Books, Yangon, 2016
  • The Burden of Being Bama: ko ko thett’s poems translated into Chinese by Matthew Chen, The Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 2015
  • The Burden of Being Burmese, Zephyr Press, 2015

Anthologies

  • Picking off New Shoots will not Stop the Spring: Witness Poems and Essays from Myanmar (1988-2021), Ethos Books, Singapore, Gaudy Boy New York and Balestier Press London, 2022, co-edited with Brian Haman
  • Bones will Crow: Fifteen Contemporary Burmese Poets, ARC, UK, & Cornell University Press,    co-edited with James Byrne, 2012/2013

Poetry Translations
English- Burmese

အချစ်စစ်  [True Love, Selected Poems by Wislawa Szymborska], based on the English translations by Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak, The Eras, Yangon, 2018

Burmese- English

  • ဉာဏ်ပန်းအိုးလေး [ဒုတိယတွဲ], A Little Vase of Light Verses [Volume II] by K Zaw, The Eras, Yangon, 2023
  • Nobody Represents Me by Zeyar Lynn, A pamphlet, co-translated by Zeyar Lynn & Vicky Bowman, Clinic Publishing Ltd., UK, 2018
  • ညနေသည် ဖတ်ရှူရန်မျှသာ, Evening is Only to be Read by Maung Thein Zaw, Seikku Cho Cho Books, Yangon, 2016
  • ဉာဏ်ပန်းအိုးလေး, A Little Vase of Light Verses by K Zaw, The Eras, Yangon, 2016 
  • ပါရာ၊ ဟံလင်း, Para by Han Lynn, Co-translated by Kenneth Wong & Nyein Nyein Pyae, Chant Chan Books, Yangon, 2015

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