PM’s poem sparks literary showdown between two National Artists

Naowarat Pongpaiboon and Suchart Sawasdsri, National Artists in Literature of 1993 and 2011 respectively, are known to have differing political opinions, and yet they are friends. While Naowarat rallied with the yellow shirts and blew his whistle on the streets protesting against the Pheu Thai government, Suchart has kept criticising the coup and pushed against the draconian lese majeste law.
The two artists are now engaged in a tussle over a nine-stanza Klon poem written by Prayut about his much-promoted concept of Thailand 4.0. After Naowarat added a few lines of his own to the PM’s poem, Suchart responded on Facebook.
Despite its name, the PM’s poem touches little on tech-savvy details while telling Thais to “not stand against the law”, which in practice includes orders enacted under the interim charter’s Article 44, which gives Prayut absolute power. Although imperfect in rhyme, the poem was hailed by the Education Ministry, which made a series of accompanying infographics. Officials even sung a ballad version of it – although the voice recording was later removed from the ministry’s Facebook page.
Naowarat, who was appointed by the junta to the defunct National Reform Council in 2014, wrote a stanza adding to the PM’s poem, suggesting that Thailand should also “adopt meritocracy”, promote traditional arts and culture, develop the educational system and balance power structures.
The verses were read out loud by Prayut himself during his weekly TV programme show last Friday. The premier also replied to Naowarat with more poetry, emphasising morality, good governance and a corruption-free society – all of which are the stated aims of the junta government.
Naowarat’s stanza, however, was scolded by Suchart the next day.
“What you have never seen you will see, what you have never known you will know,” wrote Suchart on Facebook, without mentioning Naowarat’s name, but referring to him by saying “My son asked me to let ‘him’ go, a ‘shadow’ [of the power-that-be]. I would let ‘him’ go. ‘He’ has his way and I have mine. We’d better not see each other again …
“Farewell to the melodious poems,” wrote Suchart.
“Is this one of those 250 handpicked senators in cultural affairs?” Suchart added in reference to the next Upper House, which will be wholly selected by the ruling junta, a “shadow” of the power-that-be that apparently will be ready to fawn on them.
Just five and a half hours later, Naowarat countered with a Karb Yani, a poem containing 11 syllables in each verse.
Possibly to counter criticism against the junta premier, Naowarat argued that whatever is good or bad could provide people with lessons as long as people know how to “live and see things properly”.
“We can prostrate to them as long as we can keep up with them,” he wrote in the poem. Apparently in response to Suchart, Naowarat went on: “When seeing a barking dog, don’t bark back. It simply tests our instincts, justifying who is genuinely good or bad.”
As the poetic battle went on, Prayut himself did not seem very satisfied with the outcome of his literary attempt.
“Just a little bit of my poem stirred another clash. I simply wrote what I had in mind and it turned out two National Artists fought each other,” Prayut said at yesterday’s seminar on national strategy. “I’m so worried about this. I think I should stop talking for a month.”