Bamboophobia

At turns poignant and unsettlingly funny, ko ko thett’s Bamboophobia moves like a linguistic chameleon, leaving me unsure of how to stand in its pages. Supremely pleasurable images come together with sounds that sing in a poem like “Swine,” which opens with these lines: “Like a pageant sow the pregnant moon has lowered herself / to rub her spine against a pine limb.” In “Let Us Suppose You Love Me,” we learn about state violence and torture in Myanmar, and about how “they crammed me in a bamboo coop and, with a tiny wet cane, struck the most sensual parts of my body day in and day out.” As thett reminds us, “People in The Dark Ages didn’t call their days / The Dark Ages.” This work’s dark themes are shot through with humor, often in the form of one-liners like this, from “Copter”: “An airplane is a public toilet with wings.”

Bamboophobia includes several poems by thett originally written in Burmese, alongside the poet’s own translations of his work. This collection leaps through languages, while also reflecting on language itself. “I may be able to Burmese my English,” says thett, and “I may be able to English / my Burmese. But I will not Finnish my Burmese.” Belonging is one core question of this collection, and for this poet belonging is forever tied to language. In “Accent” the speaker tells us: “You will still hear my skin whinge even after maggots dwell / and die in my accent,” an accent “so incredibly thick it / whistles under water.” What emerges is a speaker unsure of where they fit in, or if fitting in is what they want.

A helpful key emerges in “How to win friends and influence people,” where we are advised to “assume the most / unassuming posture, shizentai!” (Shizentai is the Japanese word for “natural upright posture,” which must be mastered in order to practice judo.) Drawing together sorrow and humor, thett reminds us that “[h]uman language is simply inadequate for human pain,” and that laughter might bring us closer to truth.