Prominent contemporary Myanmar poet Kyi Zaw Aye died of a cerebral aneurysm in Yangon on Monday, one day shy of his 44th birthday.
While his death is attributed to natural causes, it is a loss compounded by the murder of a number of well-known poets by the Myanmar military since the February 2021 coup, including K Za Win and Myint Myint Zin, shot dead at a demonstration more than one year ago, and Khet Thi, tortured and killed in junta custody.
Hailing from northwestern Myanmar’s Sagaing, Kyi Zaw Aye loudly opposed the junta in his writing. His native region has been long known for its deep roots in Burmese Buddhism, the bedrock of much of the country’s rich literary history. Yet in the culmination of his more than 20-year career, he lamented how in 18 months Sagaing had been transformed into a warzone—with villages reduced to ash and tens of thousands of civilians displaced by military aerial and ground assaults aimed at crushing armed resistance to junta rule.
The day before his passing, Kyi Zaw Aye published a poem on social media reflecting on the crisis in Myanmar. It has been interpreted by many as mourning the death of 13 civilians, including seven children, killed last month in a military airstrike on a school in Letyetkone, Sagaing. The poem was printed on pamphlets and distributed to attendees at his funeral at Yangon’s Yay Way cemetery on Wednesday, among whom were several poets and writers from Myanmar’s literary community.
The piece, titled “Coming Winter,” is his final work and a tribute to the collective pain of his people.
Coming Winter
Amidst the smouldering smoke of
Insecurity
The atmosphere is tarnished.
The helicopters are circling above.
On the parched farmland were
A fresh bloodstain
A piece of flesh and
A piece of broken bone.
The heat spews out from the rooftops.
Sometimes, there comes out the cry of a child
Sometimes, the groan of an old woman
A young man, grinning his teeth, mutters,
“How on earth I can find true love
In times of war?”
“Sons of bitches!
That is what even the dogs won’t eat,”
An old man clicks his tongue.
Like an incurable disease
This is the wrong path.
When the winter soon comes
What stove can be warmer than love?
Let us bask in pain.
(Unofficial translation by Myanmar Now)
