School Over

By, Muhammad Haji Salleh

The Poet
One of Malaysian well-known authors.
He has also made a name for himself as an
essayist, cultural critic, translator and publisher of
Tengara, a magazine for Southeast Asian literature.
He has written several volumes of poetry in English
and Malay and has published anthologies of Malay
poetry.

Born on 26 March 1942, at Temerlok, Trong.
In 1958 when he entered the Malay College, Kuala
Kangsar(Maktab Melayu Kuala Kangsar).
While studying, he had won the Wise and Bulter
Scholarship for Composition and Translation in two
languages.
He taught for some times before he went to Brinsford
Lodge, Wolverhampton to study.
He began to write poetry in both English and Malay
when he was undergoing teacher-training in England
during the early 1960s.
In 1977, he was a Visiting Professor in North
Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Since 1978 he has been a professor in the
Department of Malay Letters at the National
University of Malaysia.
In 1992-1993, he was a Fulbright Visiting
Researcher in University of California, Berkeley.
In 1993-1994 he was the Chair of Malay Studies,
Leiden University, Leiden, Holland.
In 1999-2000 he was a fellow at the Center for
Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto Univerwsity.
Since 2000, he has been a professor of the School of
Humanities in Science University of Malaysia,
Penang.

Like all his other poems, Muhammad Haji Salleh has
written all the words in the poems in lower case. Only
the Latin-influenced languages use capitals letters to
begin sentences and proper names. Languages such as
Arabic, Chinese, Thai, Burmese etc , do not have such
rules. Giving I the lower case symbolizes a sense of
humility. This is probably because the poet regards
what he felt during school over as very personal.

He wrote the poem while he was teaching in Sultan
Abu Bakar School, Kuantan in 1968. His real experience
as a teacher watching his pupils rushing out of the
classroom in great spirit and life force, which was not
shown in class, has inspired him to write this poem.
Discuss
What are your feelings when the
class is almost over?

Sit in a group of 4-5 and discuss.
Stanza 1
the belated bell shrieked rustily
into listless children ears
listening to their noon-dreams
and wandering plans
for the schoolless afternoon.
i too was waiting for the bell
(quietly cursing the new office-boy)
persuading an idea home
into minds that have closed
their doors.
Showing no
interest
The persona
also wanted to
go home.
Meaning
Students were not paying attention because
of their tiredness after spending such a long
time in class.
They were making plans for the coming
afternoon.
The persona himself also was also eager to go
home.

Stanza 2
the bell was life-giver,
the sudden god of freedom-
life rushed into the limbs
of heat-sapped bodies.
chairs were flung on desks,
wood upon wood, dragging
the last scraps of the day down.
but i must wait,
see them leave
what they had not wanted,
the dreary classroom,
wet from the heat
Dull, lifeless
The word sudden
indicate that the bell
is only welcomed by
the students at that
time. This is
probably that for
other times the bell
signaled the start of
another lessons
while at that time
the bell 'freed' them
from the class.
Meaning
The bell was regarded as the life giver because
the ringing of the bell made the children
energetic.
After the bell had rung, they quickly flung the
wooden chairs on the wooden tables and they
were wet from the heat because they were
sweating.
(there were no fan or air-condition that time)
But the persona had to wait for them to leave the
dull and lifeless classroom that they had not
wanted.


Stanza 3
i stood behind the table,
out of the path of the stampede
of boys running to catch
friends from other classes,
from the elbows and feet
of those newly alive.
the moments took them
away behind the buildings,
to the roads.
Stampede
means a sudden
wild rush of
mass of people
in a particular
direction.
The students
left very fast.
Meaning
The persona had to stand behind the table to
avoid being knocked down from the
stampede.
Students are bored to death in class and that
is why they felt 'newly alive' when school is
over.
They left very quickly.
Stanza 4
the girls smoothed their hair
secretly peering into some mirror
hidden in shakespeare or usman awang.
in their book baskets.
i stood waiting for them to go
an awkwardly witness to life -
giggles and whispers.
they walked out
some feminine, some childish,
thanking me.

Students might not be
allowed to bring
mirrors or comb to
school. Otherwise, they
would not have to peer
into mirrors secretly.
Their books.
Meaning
On the other hand, the girls were still calm.
They were secretly peering into some
mirrors that they had brought to school.
They were not allowed to bring mirrors to
school. Despite the school rules, the girls had
hidden the mirrors in their books.
At that time, books written by Shakespeare
and Usman Awang were their text books.
(They were to learn both Western and local
knowledge.)

He felt awkward probably he was confused
whether to punish the girls for breaking the
school rules or not.
The girls were giggling and whispering to each
other while they were leaving the
classroom. Some feminine, some childish.
The girls, not like the boys, were polite
enough to thank the persona before leaving.
They showed respect to the elders as their
cultures had taught them.

In your own group, discuss again:

what are the tones of this poem?
Themes
Observation of a teacher
The whole poem is about the personas observation
and the view as a teacher, on the atmosphere of
the class and the attitude of the students towards
the end of the class.
Eagerness
The students and the teacher were eager to go
home.
Excitement
The students were so excited that they had already
start to plan the activities for the afternoon even
before the class ends.
Literary Devices
1. ONOMATOPOEIA (The use of that imitate the sounds
associated with the objects or actions they refer to)
- the belated bell shrieked rustily (stanza 1, line 1)

2. ASSONANCE (The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds
in neighbouring words.)
- for the schoolless afternoon (stanza 1, line 5)

3. METAPHOR (A figure of speech in which an implied
comparison is made between two unlike things that actually
have something in common.)
- the bell was life-giver (stanza 2, line 1)

4. PERSONIFICATION ( an non-living object
given human qualities or abilities.)
- life rushed into the limbs (stanza 2, line 3)
5. OXYMORON ( A figure of speech in which
incongruous or contradictory terms appear side by side.)
-wet from the heat.(stanza 2, last line)
6. REPETITION
- some feminine, some childish,(stanza 4, line9)