In Mrs Tilscher's Class

In Mrs Tilscher's class
You could travel up the Blue Nile
with your finger, tracing the route
while Mrs Tilscher chanted the scenery.
"Tana. Ethiopia. Khartoum. Aswan."
That for an hour,
then a skittle of milk
and the chalky Pyramids rubbed into dust.
A window opened with a long pole.
The laugh of a bell swung by a running child.

This was better than home. Enthralling books.
The classroom glowed like a sweetshop.
Sugar paper. Coloured shapes. Brady and Hindley
faded, like the faint, uneasy smudge of a mistake.
Mrs Tilscher loved you. Some mornings, you found
she'd left a gold star by your name.
The scent of a pencil slowly, carefully, shaved.
A xylophone's nonsense heard from another form.

Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed
from commas into exclamation marks. Three frogs
hopped in the playground, freed by a dunce
followed by a line of kids, jumping and croaking
away from the lunch queue. A rough boy
told you how you were born. You kicked him, but stared
at your parents, appalled, when you got back
home

That feverish July, the air tasted of electricity.
A tangible alarm made you always untidy, hot,
fractious under the heavy, sexy sky. You asked her
how you were born and Mrs Tilscher smiled
then turned away. Reports were handed out.
You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown
the sky split open into a thunderstorm.

The poet presents the speaker as feeling that her school days were an incredible time when in the classroom.

This is shown when the speaker tells us that the “classroom glowed like a sweetshop”.

 

The poet presents the speaker as feeling that her schools days led to a loss of childhood innocence.

This is shown as we are told of the “heavy sexy sky”.

The speaker feels that her school days broadened her horizons and increased her experiences as “Over the Easter term the inky tadpoles changed from commas into exclamation marks”. The speaker is speaking both literally and metaphorically here. Literally her education horizon was broadened as she extended her knowledge and understanding of punctuation, however it is also a metaphor. The exclamation mark is a metaphor as just as an exclamation mark expresses excitement or surprise, during her school days the writer’s experiences and emotional intelligence also broadened as she felt more and was able to express a wider range of emotions, and specifically more intense emotions.

Additionally the speaker makes a religious reference as she refers to Easter. Easter is the time when Jesus was crucified, died and rose from the dead – perhaps through this religious reference the speaker is describing how her horizons and experiences were broadened both as she endured difficult experiences, and judgement from her peers but overcame this just as Christ did.