Ok, before we start, I believe there will be some merit to discuss what is exactly Sehijau Warna Daun and why out of many poem anthology or books, I pick this one up to be the first to be discussed in this blog.
What is Sehijau Warna Daun?
Sehijau Warna Daun is an anthology of selected Malay literary works of various genres and styles as a part of the Malay Language teaching materials for Form 1 (1999 – 2009).
So what’s the deal here? Dia macam ni, so bahasa Melayu is a compulsory subject for those studying using Malaysia Syllabus, from the primary to secondary level. A part of what will be tested in the subject for secondary students are mastery (cewahh, mastery sangat) of Malay literature.
It is called KOMSAS which stands for Komponen Sastera (Literary Component).
No, we are not required to be able to produced a proper one, that is not tested.
However, one is expected to be able to identify the form, the genre, characteristics among others and also to be able to extract from the selected readings the moral values, theme, so on and so forth.
So throughout the secondary school, there will be a text accompanying your study, for each form. So for those in form 1 in 1999-2009, the text is Sehijau Warna Daun. It is consisted of 5 genres of Malay lit, i.e.:
Puisi tradiosional (traditional poetry)
Sajak (modern poetry)
Prosa tradisional (traditional prose)
Cerpen (short stories)
Drama
But here we’re going to focus on the pantun (first) contained in this anthology.
There are 3 types of pantun selected for Sehijau Warna Daun:
Pantun 2 kerat (2-line pantun) A total of 12 pantun included, each of which follows the form of pantun 2 kerat, meaning that it’s made up of a line of pembayang followed by a line of maksud (meaning) making up 2 lines per stanza.
Pantun Budi A total of 5 pantun 4 kerat (4 lines) included. Budi means courtesy, so the pantun under this theme contain moral on practising good courtesy and also being grateful for other’s.
Pantun kanak-kanak A total of 3 pantun. Other than theme like budi, kasih-sayang (affections), nasihat (advice) pantun can also be categorised under the age-level of the pantun. Kanak-kanak means children, so basically pantun kanak-kanak deal with topics close to or concerning children. Different with pantun belia/remaja (youth) and pantun dewasa/orang tua (adults).
As for the pantun, we will dedicate separate posts to discuss more on the pantun selected for this anthology.
Till then.