Angkarn Kalayanapong

Biography

Angkarn Kalayanapong published his collection “Panithan Kawee” (“The Poet’s Vow”) in the mid-1980s, and it won him the S.E.A. Write Award, the Southeast Asian literary prize, in 1986. Three years later he was named a National Artist of Thailand in the field of literature.

He was born on 13 February 1926 in Nakhon Si Thammarat, in the south of the country, in the Tha Wang district. His father was a sub-district headman (a kamnan). It is said that Nakhon Si Thammarat has long been regarded as a city of versifiers, and that may be more than a pretty phrase: Angkarn began writing poems while still at school. He finished primary school at temple schools in his home town and secondary school at the provincial Benchamarachuthit School. He then studied art at the Pohchang School of Arts and Crafts and at the Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts of Silpakorn University in Bangkok. Among his teachers was the university’s founder, the Italian sculptor Silpa Bhirasri (Corrado Feroci). Angkarn also studied with Fua Haripitak and Chalerm Nakeerak; by some accounts he took part in their research into art, archaeology and history.

From the 1950s he was published as a professional writer. His poems did not fit the traditional schemes of Thai prosody, and at first this drew criticism. Later, literary scholars came to see him as one of the pioneers of new Thai poetry, who built a bridge between the classical tradition and modern experiment. He brought colloquial speech, neologisms, English words, paradoxes and oxymorons into his verse, while closely studying the older poets. His themes were eternal beauty, the Buddhist worldview and the golden age of Ayutthaya, which he regarded as a model state. The poem “Bangkok – Thailand” and the poem “Scooping the Sea with a Spoon” criticise the society of his day. In the collection “Annual Offerings” he writes about ecology and reproaches the government for squandering the country’s natural wealth. Not all public and political figures accepted his work, but he received several prizes.

Angkarn considered poetry and painting to be the work of a single heart. In his words, both require imagination and design, like the builders of Angkor Wat, who first had a picture in the mind before the building. A poet, he said, remains a poet with every breath. He was known for his drawings and paintings as well; among his paintings, “Prints of Himmapan” is mentioned.

During the events of 14 October 1973, he shaved his head in protest against the government. In 2006 he supported the People’s Alliance for Democracy, the “Yellow Shirts”, who opposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. In 1992 he received the Royal Order of the Crown of Thailand, fourth class.

Angkarn Kalayanapong died on 25 August 2012 in Bangkok, at the age of 86. The royal cremation took place at Wat Thong Nopphakhun in the Khlong San district.