Edwin Thumboo

A Call

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A Call

That subtle, arching force
Which stirred the hills for us
Along the Morib road,
Pushed sunlight into shadow,
Drew the rainbow taut
To make our secret language
Bid everything to live, turned
My ache and wanting beautiful.

It is not gone, not passed.
There is uncommon burning here.

Therefore, these gifts
Of many kinds with power
Eluding time: a tree by
A ruined temple; moon-silvered
Ride; shrewd reclining gods;
A cry within the womb
Shaking roots of memory;
Rose persisting on the stem;

Contours of a kalpa; mead
Burnishing the lip of a horn;
Capes and oceans yet unfelt;
Lovely disordered waves;
Simplicities of a mending touch;
The joy of an uncanny, mutual,
Quick disarming thought;
A sudden sunset, a quietude
Sweeping across the sawas
To keep us whole,

As the hills insist,
As the sunlight looms.

Edwin Thumboo

Foto © private

* , Singapore, Singapur
živi v: Singapore, Singapur

Edwin Nadason Thumboo (b. 1933) is a poet and academic who is regarded as one of the pioneers of English literature in Singapore.

Thumboo graduated in English from the University of Malaya in 1956. Although he applied for a position at the university, he was rejected as few locals held academic posts at that time. He therefore worked in the civil service for about nine years before finally joining the university, then renamed the University of Singapore, in 1966 following Singapore’s independence. He received a Ph.D. from the university in 1970. Thumboo rose to the position of full professor in the Department of English Language and Literature, heading the department between 1977 and 1993. After the merger of the University of Singapore and Nanyang University in 1980 to form the National University of Singapore (NUS), he was the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences from 1980 to 1991, NUS’s longest-serving dean. Thumboo was the first Chairman and Director of the university’s Centre for the Arts from 1993 to 2005, and continues to be associated with the university as an emeritus professor, a position he has held since retiring from full-time teaching in September 1997.

Foto © private

Thumboo’s poetry is inspired by myth and history, and he is often dubbed Singapore’s unofficial poet laureate because of his poems with nationalistic themes. A pioneer of local English literature, he compiled and edited some of the first anthologies of English poetry and fiction from Singapore and Malaysia.

His own collections of poetry include Rib of Earth (1956), Ulysses by the Merlion (1979) and A Third Map (1993). His latest anthology Still Travelling, consisting of almost 50 poems, was published in 2008. Thumboo has won the National Book Development Council of Singapore Book Awards for Poetry three times, in 1978, 1980 and 1994. He has also received the inaugural S.E.A. Write Award (1979), the first Cultural Medallion for Literature (1979), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Cultural and Communication Award (Literature) (1987), and the Raja Rao Award (2002). He was conferred a Bintang Bakti Masyarakat (Public Service Star) in 1981 with an additional Bar in 1991, and the Pingat Jasa Gemilang (Meritorious Services Medal) in 2006.

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