I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land

[sovay]

Has anyone ever written a response to Kipling's "Mandalay"—either parodic or straight—from the perspective of Supayalat, the "Burma girl"? It seems inconceivable to me that someone should not have; the poem has been around since 1892 and it's famous. But I don't know whose collected poems I should be looking in. Friendlist?

"One gets used to the flying fishes, but that bloody dawn coming up like thunder is driving me crackers."
—Charles Addams (1977)

Comments

[larryhammer]

I do not know of such a poem, though I've seen other responses by other poets.

---L.

[sovay]

I do not know of such a poem, though I've seen other responses by other poets.

Such as?

[larryhammer]

I'll have to track them down. I've seen at least one in an anthologies of travel verse (I tend to collect these), plus one or two others.

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

So, responses that aren't in the voice of Supayalat but in some other way address the soldier?

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

It's not poetry and wanders deliberately from *that* soldier, but I'd count John M. Ford's story, also titled "Mandalay."

[sovay]

John M. Ford's story, also titled "Mandalay."

Thanks! Zigzagging off along the Barrack-Room Ballads—have you read Avram Davidson's "The Affair at Lahore Cantonment"?

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I have not. Thanks for the reference!