A Critical Analysis of Artistic Language and Humanistic Culture in the Thai Free Verse ‘No Women in Poems’

Authors

  • Sirisira Chokthawikit Faculty of Humanities, Ramkhamhaeng University, Bangkok 10240, Thailand

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.48048/ajac.2026.98

Keywords:

Critical analysis, Free verse, Poetic-ness, CDA, Artistic language, Humanistic culture, Thai

Abstract

The current study aims to discuss the poetic-ness of the free verse manner in the poetry ‘No Women in Poems’ through an innovative concept of artistic-linguistic discursiveness. The theoretical approach to studying the poetic-ness of free verse is employed by the idea of Fairclough’s three CDA dimensions of examining hidden worldviews in texts. The findings are divided into, first, ‘No Women in Poems’ composed of the free verse form as a whole reflecting several free flows of thought and pointing out the quality of poetic-ness. Marvelously, the book of entire free verse enclosed plenty of artistic applications. Not only is creative in the free verse story but it is also communicative in terms of life, philosophy and truth. Second, ‘No Women in Poems’ holds the form of free verse which is associated with a life way in each area experienced by the poet. The last outreach of poetic-ness of the poetry ‘No Women in Poems’ supported by the components of correlation, comprehension, and context deserves universal attention to both local and global readers. It adequately makes humanistic culture reasonably diverse, particularly in Thai society or the homeland. The discussion of the integrated approach assists in explaining humans, minds, practices, and language use through poetic writing. The application can be a vision of ‘close reading’ skills.

 

Highlight
Based on my provided text, here are the highlights that capture the novel results and methods of this research, designed to immediately show an online reader why this content is compelling:

  • The study pioneers an innovative, integrated method called “artistic-linguistic discursiveness”, which combines a new three-part model of “poetic-ness” (correlation, comprehension, context) with Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to dissect free verse poetry. This introduces a novel analytical framework.
  • The article reveals the hidden cultural power of award-winning free verse. The analysis uncovers how Zakariya Amataya’s commencement, fully free-verse collection ‘No Women in Poems’ uses its form to embed critical discourses on life, philosophy, and human dignity, challenging traditional Thai poetic norms and societal values.
  • The paper’s process demonstrates poetry as a tool for social and existential critique. Through close readings, the research exposes how the poems employ artistic language (personification, allusion, parallelism) to articulate powerful, hidden commentaries on local development, cultural globalization, the cost of knowledge, and existential marginalization.
  • It proposes a new model for close reading skills. The integrated artistic-linguistic and CDA approach is presented as a practical, transferable model for deeply interpreting poetic texts, moving beyond traditional literary analysis to uncover layers of socio-cultural and philosophical meaning.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Alonso, J. C. (2006). Two Examples of Poetic Parallelism between John Donne and Lope de Vega. Retrieved from https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Two-Examples-of-Poetic-Parallelism-between-Donne-Vega/7a1dd8691cb9ad12e27b2657aa0f832ab2eadcd5

Amataya, Z. (2015). No women in poems (9th eds.). (in Thai). Bangkok, Thailand: 1001nightseditions.

American Humanist Association. (2024). Definition of Humanism. Retrieved from https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/definition-of-humanism/

Baumann, T., Hussein, H., & Meyer-Sickendiek, B. (2018). Style Detection for Free Verse Poetry from Text and Speech (pp, 1929-1940). In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. New Mexico, USA: Santa Fe.

Biezma, & Rawlins, K. (2017). Rhetorical questions: Severing questioning from asking. SALT, 27, 302-322.

Bobadilla, F. (2024). Humanistic culture and flourishing of human dignity: Humanistic knowledge provides depth and breadth to practical knowledge. Retrieved from https://www.exaudi.org/humanistic-culture-and-flourishing-of-human-dignity/

Chokthawikit, S. (2018). A Literary Linguistic Perspective on Free Verse: A Case Study of ‘No Women in Poetry’ (pp. 93-103). In Proceedings of 14th International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences 2018 (IC-HUSO 2018). Khon Kaen, Thailand: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khon Kaen University.

Chokthawikit, S. (2020). The Thai language as lingua franca for trading: The intercultural context of Cambodian and Myanmar neighbor laborers in Thailand. Journal of Language and Culture Mahidol University, 39(2), 84-100.

Chokthawikit, S., & Jansem, A. (2021). Democratic discourses of Thai S.E.A. write award poems in critical literary linguistics. Journal of Mekong Societies, 17(2), 74-98.

Collins, S. (2010). NIRVANA: Concept, imagery, narrative. New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.

Cooper, G. B. (1998). Mysterious music: Rhythm and free verse. Stanford California, USA: Stanford University Press.

Dooley, K. J. (2009). The Butterfly Effect of the “Butterfly Effect”. Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, 13(3), 111-120.

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2024). Zhuangzi: Zhuang Zhou, Chinese Daoist philosopher. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zhuangzi

Fabb, N. (2017). Poetic parallelism and working memory. Oral Tradition, 31(2), 355-372.

Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (2nd eds.). New York, USA: Routledge.

Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London, UK: Longman.

Griffiths, P. (2006). An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press.

Habermas, J. (1998). The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Hampe, B. (2017). Embodiment and Discourse: Dimensions and Dynamics of Contemporary Metaphor Theory (pp. 3-23). In Hampe, B. (Ed.), Metaphor: Embodied Cognition and Discourse. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Hilaire, B. (2022). Note to Survivors: An Analysis of Suicide Discourse on Suicide Noted and the Figured World of Suicide (Doctoral dissertation). USA: University of Central Florida at Orlando.

Jakobson, R. (1987). Language in Literature. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press.

Kulchytska, O., & Malyshivska, I. (2022). A contemporary free verse from American and Ukrainian readers’ perspectives. Respectus Philologicus, 42(47), 76-93.

Morioka, M. (2017). Philosophy of life in contemporary society. The Review of Life Studies, 8(October 2017), 15-22.

Nagavajara, C. (1994). Literature in Thai life: Reflections of a native. South East Asia Research, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2(1), 12-52.

O’rawe, R. (2018). The re-enchantment of surrealism: Remedios Varo’s visionary artists. Bulletin of Spanish Studies: Hispanic Studies and Researches on Spain, Portugal and Latin America, 95(5), 533-561.

Rohde, H. (2006). Rhetorical questions as redundant interrogatives. San Diego Linguistics Papers, 2, 134-168.

Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, F. J., & Masegosa, A. G. (2014). Figurative thought and figurative uses of language (pp. 38-57). In Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, F. J., & Masegosa, A. G. (Eds.). Cognitive Modeling: A Linguistic Perspective. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.

Sajjapun, R. (2005). The legacy of traditional Thai literature and its impact on contemporary children’s literature. Manusya: Journal of Humanities, 8(10), 78-87.

Smith, B. (2004). Ontology (pp. 155-166). In Floridi, L. (Ed.). Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Lotha, G., & Sinha, S. (2023). Jacques Prévert French poet, Arts & Culture. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jacques-Henri-Marie-Prevert

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, & Lotha, G. (2019). Free Verse Poetry, Arts & Culture. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/art/free-verse

Tung, C. H. (1994). The four linguistic spaces of poetry. Retrieved from https:nchu.edu.tw/~chtung/

Verschueren, J. (1999). Understanding pragmatics. London, UK: Edward Arnold.

Widdowson, H. G. (2000). Linguistics. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Downloads

Published

2025-12-19

How to Cite

Chokthawikit, S. (2025). A Critical Analysis of Artistic Language and Humanistic Culture in the Thai Free Verse ‘No Women in Poems’ . Asian Journal of Arts and Culture, 26(3), e98. https://doi.org/10.48048/ajac.2026.98