Teardrops of Time

Arnika Fuhrmann

Description

Focusing on one of the most significant poets of the twentieth century, Angkarn Kallayanapong (1926–2012), this book makes a unique contribution to understandings of non-Western literary modernity. Arnika Fuhrmann investigates how the Thai poet adapts Buddhist understandings of time to create a modern Asian aesthetic imaginary. While Angkarn's poetry conjures the image of an early modern Thai cosmopolitanism, it also pioneers a poetics reflective of present-day globalization. The result is an experiment in Buddhist cosmopolitan aesthetic modernity. Teardrops of Time contextualizes the poet's work in the literary history and cultural politics of his time, tracing the transformation of a modern Thai cultural and political imaginary through the political history of the country's authoritarian governance since the late 1950s and the exigencies of an increasingly globalized economy since the 1980s. As Angkarn's work aligns itself with contemporaneous global trends in poetry, the book reads it alongside the work of Paul Celan and Allen Ginsberg.
Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Buddhist Aesthetic Modernity

2. Ontology: Time as Conflict: Angkarn Kallayanapong's Buddhist Temporal Modernity

3. History: The Dream of a Contemporary Ayuthaya: Angkarn Kallayanapong's Poetics of Dissent, Aesthetic Nationalism, and Thai Literary Modernity

4. Subjectivity: Modern Manifesto: Poetry as Redemptive-Therapeutic Action in the World

5. Language: Transnational Poetic Modernity: Linguistic Innovation and Religious Borrowings in the Work of Paul Celan and Angkarn Kallayanapong

6. Politics: One Night in Bangkok: Angkarn Kallayanapong and Allen Ginsberg

7. Conclusion: Performing a Redemptive Present

Appendix: Translations of Angkarn Kallayanapong's Work on Time

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Asia
• Poetry
• History of religions
• History of Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Buddhism

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 décembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438480756
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

TEARDROPS OF TIME
TEARDROPS OF TIME
BUDDHIST AESTHETICS IN THE POETRY OF ANGKARN KALLAYANAPONG
ARNIKA FUHRMANN
Cover design by Wonderwhale
Original drawing:
Angkarn Kalyanapong
Melting Men
1976
Charcoal on paper, 110 × 89 cm
Collection of National Gallery Singapore
Image courtesy of National Heritage Board
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Fuhrmann, Arnika, author.
Title: Teardops of time : Buddhist aesthetics in the poetry of Angkarn Kallayanapong / Arnika Fuhrmann.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2020] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438480732 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438480756 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1 INTRODUCTION
Buddhist Aesthetic Modernity
2 ONTOLOGY
Time as Conflict: Angkarn Kallayanapong’s Buddhist Temporal Modernity
3 HISTORY
The Dream of a Contemporary Ayuthaya: Angkarn Kallayanapong’s Poetics of Dissent, Aesthetic Nationalism, and Thai Literary Modernity
4 SUBJECTIVITY
Modern Manifesto: Poetry as Redemptive-Therapeutic Action in the World
5 LANGUAGE
Transnational Poetic Modernity: Linguistic Innovation and Religious Borrowings in the Work of Paul Celan and Angkarn Kallayanapong
6 POLITICS
One Night in Bangkok: Angkarn Kallayanapong and Allen Ginsberg
7 CONCLUSION
Performing a Redemptive Present
APPENDIX
Translations of Angkarn Kallayanapong’s Work on Time
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
Acknowledgments
Countless individuals facilitated the completion of this multidecade project. It is a pleasure to express my gratitude to Suchitra Chongstitvatana, who first introduced me in depth to the poetry of Angkarn Kallayanapong and inspired me to continue to study his work. At the University of Hamburg, Klaus Rosenberg, Klaus Wenk, Bahrend Jan Terwiel, Patcharee Kaspar-Sickermann, Lambert Schmithausen, Albrecht Wetzler, and Michael Zimmermann spent countless hours teaching me how to read Thai poetry, Sanskrit, and Pali. Among my dedicated teachers at the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Ing-orn Supanvanit, Bunlom Manothai, and Trisilpa Boonkhachorn have my special appreciation.
Much later, at the University of Chicago, Sheldon Pollock prompted me to ask questions about the sociopolitical import of Angkarn Kallayanapong’s poetry. Pali and Buddhist studies with Steven Collins taught me how to think about Buddhist philosophy in literature. Guy Leavitt and Andy Rotman tirelessly critiqued and supported my work.
While preparing this book for publication, I had the great pleasure to get to know the poet’s daughter, Khun Qwan (Ormkaew Kallayanapong). I thank Adele Tan at the National Gallery Singapore for the introduction. I thank Ormkaew for generously granting translation rights for the poems printed here. I thank Sulak Sivaraksa for taking the time to have a long, insightful conversation about Angkarn with me and Anuk Pitukthanin for facilitating this meeting.
I am grateful to Peter Hale at the Ginsberg Foundation for taking an interest in my work and providing me with information about Allen Ginsberg’s travels in Southeast Asia. Without the help of Tim Noakes, head of Public Services, Special Collections, at Stanford University Library, who invested time searching the Ginsberg papers for me, my comparative analysis would not have been possible. I thank the Wylie Agency in New York for subsequently granting permissions for the first-time publication of passages from Ginsberg’s journal about his experience in Southeast Asia: excerpts from the Allen Ginsberg Papers at Stanford by Allen Ginsberg. Copyright © 1963 by Allen Ginsberg, used by permission of the Wylie Agency LLC.
Karl Gerth, Wasana Wongsurawat, and Tony Day furnished valuable feedback on a paper titled “One Night in Bangkok: Ideological Convergence in Angkarn Kallayanapong and Allen Ginsberg’s Cold War Poetics,” delivered in the panel “Cold War Cosmopolitanisms: Arts and Cultures that Transcend Ideological Boundaries,” at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Convention in Washington, DC, in March 2018.
A faculty fellowship in 2015–2016 at Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities allowed me to finish large sections of this manuscript. Tim Murray and my colleagues in the Department of Asian Studies generously supported my work. I also wish to acknowledge an Association for Asian Studies, South East Asia Council Translation Subvention Grant (2013).
Any shortcomings in translation or analysis are my sole responsibility, but I thank Kong Rithdee for casting his sharp eye on my translations and Daniel McNaughton for carefully reviewing my manuscript and creating the book’s index. I thank Raven Schwam-Curtis and Manasicha Akepiyapornchai for their contributions to the proofing process.
Finally, I was fortunate to have in Christopher Ahn and James Peltz editors who shepherded this project with great enthusiasm, as did Diane Ganeles as project editor. I am grateful to the press also for enlisting the expertise of the sharp and engaged anonymous readers whose review improved my manuscript immeasurably. Chusak Pattarakulvanit is one of the press’s reviewers who has allowed me to thank him by name. I would like to express my gratitude to Ajarn Chusak for his generous, insightful engagement with my work. I would like to extend the same heartfelt thanks to the second, anonymous reader, whose succinct review likewise allowed me to improve the book tremendously.
I am very grateful to Renée Staal and Adele Tan of the National Gallery Singapore and to Ormkaew Kallayanapong for providing permission to use an image from Angkarn’s Melting Men (1976) as the cover image of this book.
A version of chapter 3 first appeared as “The Dream of a Contemporary Ayuthaya: Angkhan Kalayanaphong’s Poetics of Dissent, Aesthetic Nationalism, and Thai Literary Modernity,” Oriens Extremus 48 (2009), 271–90. B. J. Terwiel, Thak Chaloemtiarana, and Martin Hanke provided insightful feedback on this chapter.
I thank Ek, Sutham Thamrongvit, for directing me to the work of Wonderwhale. I am very grateful to the designer Wonderwhale for his conceptualization of the book’s cover.
It was my father, Gunther, who, in his inimitable way, prompted me to complete and submit the manuscript for this book. I thank him and my mother, Malve, for their humorous and unstinting support.

A note on romanization: In agreement with his daughter, Ormkaew Kallayanapong, I use the official transliteration into English of the poet’s name, Angkarn Kallayanapong. Other scholars’ transliterations vary throughout the text.
1
Introduction
Buddhist Aesthetic Modernity
In his 1969 poem “Wela Khue Chiwa” (“Time Is Life”), modern Thai poet Angkarn Kallayanapong (1926–2012) presciently combines the cultural critique of a globalizing, commercializing, and art-averse era with a remedial vision. As a piece of modern Thai poetry, “Time Is Life” stands out in that it incorporates all at once a critique of the contemporary world, an expansive ontology that includes the cosmos, and a Buddhist-informed reparative vision:
Heaven has given us Time,
Like a lord of heavenly status.
Every single minute is life,
Destroying time is destroying oneself.
Does this existence have ideals,
Or is the heart evil, dissolute, without aim?
Worse yet, scores of lowly creatures,
Are carelessly enmeshed in the refuse of worldly entanglement.
One day, feel deeply about something,
Cut a newer gem of wisdom.
All over the earth there is no taste of divine efflorescence
As food for the soul.
The Wheel of Time will approach slowly,
Abducting life and executing it.
Should one merely eat, sleep, reproduce to one’s heart’s content
Before the end of this life, before death?
Greedy, infatuated, insatiable, crazy for wealth,
The spirit, sorrowful, disintegrates.
The glow of life adverse diminishes,
Lacking dignity, the glow of the heart is lost.
Awake, arise and seek value,
Traces of the way of the great Bodhisattva.
Render the value of your life to the world,
Offer it for everlasting miraculous happiness.
Revolutionize the view of philosophy,
So that the world be pure like heaven.
Have loving kindness and pity, don’t kill one another,
Turn the flow of blood into the planting of flowers.
Salvage the heart to the height of the incomparable stars,
Like glimpses of great dignity,
Immortal, far above the turning of the Wheel of Transmigration,
Sacred new power, brave knowledge of discursive thinking.
Clearly perceive the entire value of earth, water, sky,
Long until the day of the kalpa ’s end,
For contentedness throughout time eternal,
For the universe’s calm, to erase suffering and peril.
In Teardrops of Time , I investiga