Stone, Sea, and Soul: A Poetic Ethnography of...

Stone, Sea, and Soul: A Poetic Ethnography of Kankesanthurai’s Post-War Memory

Author Name : Wasantha Samarathunga, Risindu Ransen

ABSTRACT This paper presents a poetic triptych voiced by a lighthouse, the sea, and a fisherman, offering a layered act of remembrance rooted in the war-touched coastal town of Kankesanthurai, Sri Lanka. Drawing from fieldwork and lived testimony, the poems reflect emotionally grounded perspectives shaped by silence, rhythm, and survival. Through localized allegorical remembrance and strict iambic pentameter, each persona speaks with dignity and restraint. The lighthouse endures in silence; the sea mourns in motion; the fisherman survives through routine. Together, they form a rhythm of resilience that resists abstraction and heroic narrative. This model of poetic ethnography may be adapted to other post-conflict or culturally layered regions, where memory calls for forms of expression that reach beyond data and into lived experience.