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

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Who would dare? It's such a great poem.

And doesn't the poem itself suggest- ever so subtly- the ex-soldier's self deception?

[seishonagon.livejournal.com]

I don't know about written versions, but when I was growing up, my parents had a beautiful painting up called "the Burma Girl" which I was always told was based on Kipling. I don't know if it's actually true, about its being based on Kipling, but it's definitely what I heard growing up.

[time-shark.livejournal.com]

Maybe Sonya Taaffe should write that poem.

[larryhammer]

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

---L.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I hope so. I could see her later as a Buddhist nun...

Nine

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

No notion, unfortunately. But I'd read it if you wrote it.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly.

[sovay]

Maybe Sonya Taaffe should write that poem.

If my knowledge of late nineteenth-century Burma were not essentially nil . . .

[sovay]

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

Such as?

[sovay]

And doesn't the poem itself suggest- ever so subtly- the ex-soldier's self deception?

I think so: he's so wistful. But I still find it surprising that no one I know of has tried. There are dozens of poems now voiced by Ophelia and that's contending with Shakespeare.

[sovay]

but when I was growing up, my parents had a beautiful painting up called "the Burma Girl" which I was always told was based on Kipling.

Interesting. Do you know whose it was?

[sovay]

But I'd read it if you wrote it.

Thanks. I can't have been the first person the idea occurred to!

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Welks.

I don't reckon you could be the first to think of it, either. But I suppose it's possible that nobody has actually written it, or put it into print.

In which case you could be the first, yes?

[wakanomori.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if maybe it's this one, A girl painting her eyebrows, evidently from a painting by James Raeburn Middleton, a contemp. of Kipling's. It seems the image was quite quite well known in pre-war Britain. Middleton also did a well-known (or at least well enough that you can buy posters of it now) painting of a Burmese dancer. But the first one is listed along with a ref to Kipling's poem in Burmese design & architecture by John Falconer et al. (Tuttle, 2000) -- you can see it on Googlebooks, page 11 of the intro.

Nice icon, btw.

[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"?

[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.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I have not. Thanks for the reference!