Chris Lin
'A hole the size of a pencil tip': Reflections on Burma’s coup since February
'There’s a line in Burmese poet Min San Wai’s poem "Hole" that acutely captures what I have felt since February, when the military seized power in Burma and unleashed its campaign of violence. The poem is an elegy to Pan Ei Phyu, a fourteen-year-old girl killed by a bullet that pierced the bamboo wall of her house in Meiktila, Burma. Its title is a reference to the bullet hole etched on the bamboo wall – the size of a pencil tip – a miniature image of the mass atrocities Burma’s regime has committed on its people. In the poem, family members take turns peering into the hole, trying to reclaim their daughter.'