Eric Linsker and Jeff Nagy have asked me to post this CNR (call for negative reviews). I told Eric and Jeff, I was ready, willing, and able to write a crippling critique of any one of my books. After all, I am ideally suited for the assignment as I saw where the manufacturer used shoddy materials to save money and speed up the production.
The ordinary is always elusive—"near is / and difficult to grasp"—even as it is the most present actuality. And my sense, when talking about the ordinary, is always how extraordinary it is. Paradoxically, any attempt to fix the ordinary pulls it out of the everydayness in which it is situated, from which it seems to derive its power. . . .
To many people outside Myanmar (Burma), it might come as a surprise that there is such a thing as Language-oriented Poetry in contemporary Myanmar poetry scene. As I happen to be the person responsible (‘the instigator’ / ‘the culprit’) of so-called Language-oriented Poetry in Myanmar, I feel that I should have my say on how this has come about in Myanmar, a country that has been under a military regime for the past 20 years or so.
