Episode #113: “I often asked myself how people can really have the presence of mind to sit down and write amidst such extraordinarily difficult circumstances, to be able to reflect on the kinds of traumas that that they're experiencing.”

So says Brian Haman, who, along with ko ko thett, is the co-editor of “Picking Off New Shoots Will Not Stop the Spring: Witness poems and essays from Burma/Myanmar (1988-2021),” the first published literary work to come out of Myanmar since the military coup. It is a stunning collection of poetry and prose, bringing profound and heart-wrenching perspectives from a variety of Burmese people impacted by the ongoing conflict.

Many of their selections for the anthology unflinchingly present the harsh reality of that violence, fear, despair, loss, and grief. What readers experience is a rawness of emotion and expression that overwhelms the many aspects of the coup and its aftermath that have been somewhat clinically reported on in the past year and a half in the mainstream media.

Despite the extreme forms of violence being waged on innocent civilians, Brian was in awe of the power they displayed when they fought back with their voices. This was a force that the regime was equally aware of, and in fact anxious about, as they went to great lengths to go after those creative leaders whose art, music, poetry, or words were motivating the resistance movement.

And even amid all the brutality and suffering, Brian still senses an underlying spirit that the Burmese people, that they believe they will eventually triumph. “For all the suffering and for all of the loss and trauma from the death and torture and things like that, nevertheless there is a spirit of optimism… [T]here is this kind of indomitable spring that that just doesn't seem to be able to be suppressed or repressed.”