About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherChin Music Press

ISBN-101634050509

ISBN-139781634050500

eBay Product ID (ePID)11059209425

Product Key Features

Book TitleDeath in Summer

Number of Pages106 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2023

TopicAsian / General, General, Subjects & Themes / Family

IllustratorYes

GenreArt, Poetry

AuthorMaung Day

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height0.3 in

Item Weight7.8 Oz

Item Length9 in

Item Width6.1 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

ReviewsOut of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic, Out of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic Maung Day is a visionary, one of the most original poets writing today. In this collection, he captures the grief of refugees as well as those who never leave their beloved, war-torn homes. These poems teem, often overflowing with life even as they acknowledge that death is never far away. Sparrows as large as houses, corpses that complain about the mud, a magician that disappears into a horse - Day's creations are vivid, sharp, and true even in their wildest forms. -Erica Wright, author of Snake Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air Alongside Maung Day's phantasmagorical illustrations, the poems in Death in Summer reach out to us from a mysterious place of grief and beauty. I found myself returning to lines as if they were talismans, turning them over in my mind the way one would examine an exquisite scarab. This collection holds an inscrutable wisdom from which we can all benefit. -Catherine Bresner, author of the empty season In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn't understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Day's urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel The figures of humans, of bird-humans, of beast-men, of various apparitions in Maung Day's ink-on-paper drawings have a strangely familiar and lonely appearance, as if they were our previous lives or distant ancestors...The peculiar, uncanny, and restless air of Day's poetry creeped into my body. -Nhã Thuyên, author of words breathe, creatures of elsewhere, Out of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world with defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic Maung Day is a visionary, one of the most original poets writing today. In this collection, he captures the grief of refugees as well as those who never leave their beloved, war-torn homes. These poems teem, often overflowing with life even as they acknowledge that death is never far away. Sparrows as large as houses, corpses that complain about the mud, a magician that disappears into a horse - Day's creations are vivid, sharp, and true even in their wildest forms. -Erica Wright, author of Snake Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air Alongside Maung Day's phantasmagorical illustrations, the poems in Death in Summer reach out to us from a mysterious place of grief and beauty. I found myself returning to lines as if they were talismans, turning them over in my mind the way one would examine an exquisite scarab. This collection holds an inscrutable wisdom from which we can all benefit. -Catherine Bresner, author of the empty season In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn't understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Day's urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel The figures of humans, of bird-humans, of beast-men, of various apparitions in Maung Day's ink-on-paper drawings have a strangely familiar and lonely appearance, as if they were our previous lives or distant ancestors...The peculiar, uncanny, and restless air of Day's poetry creeped into my body. -Nhã Thuyên, author of words breathe, creatures of elsewhere, Out of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn't understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Day's urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel, Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air, Out of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world with defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic Maung Day is a visionary, one of the most original poets writing today. In this collection, he captures the grief of refugees as well as those who never leave their beloved, war-torn homes. These poems teem, often overflowing with life even as they acknowledge that death is never far away. Sparrows as large as houses, corpses that complain about the mud, a magician that disappears into a horse - Day''s creations are vivid, sharp, and true even in their wildest forms. -Erica Wright, author of Snake Ancestral parables, psychohistorical visions and apparitions, Maung Day''s Death in Summer puts forward the idea of the surreal as disturbingly more real ... This is a beautifully ambidextrous, innovative poetics of both documentation and transformation; a summoning for any serious reader of poetry. Here, we encounter children carrying cities inside their bodies, King Mindon walking in the skin of his soldiers, and the eyes of flies taking photos of the dead. Accompanied by a suite of exceptional drawings to alternate with the poems themselves, Maung Day confirms that he is a complete artist, sensitive to those who suffer from oppression and subtly calling out injustice. If you want to know one of the great poets writing from Myanmar today, you would do well to start here. -James Byrne, poet, co-editor of Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and their imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air Alongside Maung Day''s phantasmagorical illustrations, the poems in Death in Summer reach out to us from a mysterious place of grief and beauty. I found myself returning to lines as if they were talismans, turning them over in my mind the way one would examine an exquisite scarab. This collection holds an inscrutable wisdom from which we can all benefit. -Catherine Bresner, author of the empty season In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn''t understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Day''s urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel The figures of humans, of bird-humans, of beast-men, of various apparitions in Maung Day''s ink-on-paper drawings have a strangely familiar and lonely appearance, as if they were our previous lives or distant ancestors ... The peculiar, uncanny, and restless air of Day''s poetry crept into my body. -Nhã Thuyên, author of words breathe, creatures of elsewhere, Out of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world with defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic Maung Day is a visionary, one of the most original poets writing today. In this collection, he captures the grief of refugees as well as those who never leave their beloved, war-torn homes. These poems teem, often overflowing with life even as they acknowledge that death is never far away. Sparrows as large as houses, corpses that complain about the mud, a magician that disappears into a horse - Day''s creations are vivid, sharp, and true even in their wildest forms. -Erica Wright, author of Snake Ancestral parables, psychohistorical visions and apparitions, Maung Day''s Death in Summer puts forward the idea of the surreal as disturbingly more real ... This is a beautifully ambidextrous, innovative poetics of both documentation and transformation; a summoning for any serious reader of poetry. Here, we encounter children carrying cities inside their bodies, King Mindon walking in the skin of his soldiers, and the eyes of flies taking photos of the dead. Accompanied by a suite of exceptional drawings to alternate with the poems themselves, Maung Day confirms that he is a complete artist, sensitive to those who suffer from oppression and subtly calling out injustice. If you want to know one of the great poets writing from Myanmar today, you would do well to start here. -James Byrne, author of Everything Broken Up Dances Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and their imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air Alongside Maung Day''s phantasmagorical illustrations, the poems in Death in Summer reach out to us from a mysterious place of grief and beauty. I found myself returning to lines as if they were talismans, turning them over in my mind the way one would examine an exquisite scarab. This collection holds an inscrutable wisdom from which we can all benefit. -Catherine Bresner, author of the empty season In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Maung Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn''t understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Maung Day''s urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel The figures of humans, of bird-humans, of beast-men, of various apparitions in Maung Day''s ink-on-paper drawings have a strangely familiar and lonely appearance, as if they were our previous lives or distant ancestors ... The peculiar, uncanny, and restless air of Maung Day''s poetry crept into my body. -Nhã Thuyên, author of words breathe, creatures of elsewhere, Out of tragedy arrives a dreamscape, out of ruin of history comes poetry that changes our perspective on ourselves. Is this surrealism? Perhaps. But I happen to feel it is a way of seeing the misfortune of the world with defiant hope that imagination is possible in days to come - and, frankly, it is all we have to get us through. Maung Day wrote a very beautiful book, and I, for one, am grateful. -Ilya Kaminsky, author of Deaf Republic Maung Day is a visionary, one of the most original poets writing today. In this collection, he captures the grief of refugees as well as those who never leave their beloved, war-torn homes. These poems teem, often overflowing with life even as they acknowledge that death is never far away. Sparrows as large as houses, corpses that complain about the mud, a magician that disappears into a horse - Maung Day''s creations are vivid, sharp, and true even in their wildest forms. -Erica Wright, author of Snake Ancestral parables, psychohistorical visions and apparitions, Maung Day''s Death in Summer puts forward the idea of the surreal as disturbingly more real ... This is a beautifully ambidextrous, innovative poetics of both documentation and transformation; a summoning for any serious reader of poetry. Here, we encounter children carrying cities inside their bodies, King Mindon walking in the skin of his soldiers, and the eyes of flies taking photos of the dead. Accompanied by a suite of exceptional drawings to alternate with the poems themselves, Maung Day confirms that he is a complete artist, sensitive to those who suffer from oppression and subtly calling out injustice. If you want to know one of the great poets writing from Myanmar today, you would do well to start here. -James Byrne, author of Everything Broken Up Dances Maung Day is a poet of fire. At times the poems in Death in Summer explode with great energetic leaps; at other times they sizzle away with a slow burn in terse prose sentences. In either case, "The flames snap at the night sky with their exquisite teeth," and I love these poems for their human warmth, their skiey leaps, and their imaginative fierceness. -Nathan Hoks, author of Nests in Air Alongside Maung Day''s phantasmagorical illustrations, the poems in Death in Summer reach out to us from a mysterious place of grief and beauty. I found myself returning to lines as if they were talismans, turning them over in my mind the way one would examine an exquisite scarab. This collection holds an inscrutable wisdom from which we can all benefit. -Catherine Bresner, author of the empty season In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Maung Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn''t understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Maung Day''s urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel The figures of humans, of bird-humans, of beast-men, of various apparitions in Maung Day''s ink-on-paper drawings have a strangely familiar and lonely appearance, as if they were our previous lives or distant ancestors ... The peculiar, uncanny, and restless air of Maung Day''s poetry crept into my body. -Nhã Thuyên, author of words breathe, creatures of elsewhere, In his debut full-length collection in English, Death in Summer , Burmese poet Maung Day confronts trauma and political repression in a series of deadpan prose poems that expose the absurdity of narrative logic in a world of senseless violence. Here, "[a] madman builds a town in his head, and a boy goes to school in that town." Elsewhere we learn of "a school for children with no tongues" in which "the school teaches only one subject: patience." Flies can lift a carcass or take a photo of a dead man with their eyes. For Day, there are no sanctuaries: schools, hospitals, and even the countryside can be perilous. Early on, the speaker pleads, "I want to leave this place. It doesn't understand my eyes." Punctuated by arresting, hand-drawn illustrations, Day's urgent book envisions alien-like myth-making as a source of tentative relief. -James Shea, author of The Lost Novel

SynopsisIn this collection of visceral, dreamlike prose poems and chimeric ink drawings, Burmese poet and artist Maung Day creates a haunting portrait of how political violence and oppression in Myanmar has permeated the everyday lives of its citizens. Exploring family history alongside turbulent current events and historical atrocities, these surreal, at times disorienting poems interweave the gritty and realistic with the fantastic and absurd, delivering personal and powerful social commentary. Maung Day's ninth book of poems, Death in Summer is his first full-length collection written in English and the first time his art and poetry have been published side-by-side., Burmese poet Maung Day's ninth book of poems but his first full-length collection written in English, Death in Summer is a haunting, surreal series of prose poems and original ink drawings that delivers defiant social commentary on the atrocities of Myanmar's past and its turbulent current events. Through these visceral, at times magical realist poems, we witness a family's migration from the countryside to Yangon, a childhood marked by the 8888 uprising and resulting coup, and present-day struggles against political censorship and violence. Interwoven throughout the book are Maung Day's chimeric figure drawings, which, like his poetry, draw on Buddhist folklore and themes of environmental justice. Maung Day's writing is influenced by the Burmese khitpor (modern) tradition and American poetry alike. His stark imagery and frank, direct use of language evoke Charles Simic, while the absurd and fable-like narratives may remind readers of Russell Edson. In a city "trembling with insomnia," we meet tongueless children who "must speak through birds given to them on the first day of school," a visiting uncle who prefers to sleep outdoors in a tree, "a corpse waiting for burial at a monastery" who "mutters how much he hates the wet days," and a terrified family that realizes their home is actually "a carriage drawn by a malevolent creature" they can't see. At once exquisite and grotesque, plainspoken and enigmatic, Death in Summer is an original and spellbinding collection of contemporary activist poetry and art.