Checking Out My History by John Agard
- Created by: randall04
- Created on: 29-10-19 11:29
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- Checking Out Me History by John Agard
- form and structure
- lack of punctuation reflects the speakers own experience of having a different culture forced on him suggesting its difficult to understand why they had different cultures forced on them
- the rhyme scheme has three white figures then ends with a black figure by ending the poem with a black figure it emphasizes the significance of this figure
- its about the conflict between two different cultures
- quotes
- Dem tell me/Dem tell me/Wha dem want to tell me
- In the first three lines of the first verse he repeats the phrase “Dem tell me”. This is a technique called anaphora. This repetition reinforces the view that the teaching of white history amounts to a process of indoctrination, as is the teaching of white nursery rhymes. “Dem tell me” suggests passiveness, but this changes at the end of the poem — the pivotal ‘But’ in the penultimate line — when the character becomes assertive and declares “now I checking out me own history”.
- The word “dem” emphasises the chasm between minority groups and the white Establishment. ‘Dem’ may refer to politicians, as education is a political issue, but it also it refers to society as a whole, which hasn’t yet grasped and absorbed the complexity and richness of its diverse population. ‘Wha’ is another dialect word. Agard chooses these to signify rebellion against the conventional forms taught in schools.
- Bandage up me eye with me own history/Blind me to me own identity
- a bandage is given to treat and injury but it can be removed
- blind implies hes been injured by is identity which is what soceity has made him believe
- Toussaint/A slave/With vision/Lick back/Napoleon
- the form changes when talking about afro caribean history he is then empasizing personal freedom linked to cultural freedom
- toussaint is contrasted w/ napoleon showing that a slave is more powerful than a dictaitor. therfore the poem is acting like toussaint and trying to make a change
- NannySee-far womanOf mountain dreamFire-woman struggleHopeful streamTo freedom river
- tells the story of nanny de maroon who help slaves to freedom. the use of hopeful imagry eg freedom river and hopeful stream could symbolise agards hope for a new future cultural identity
- But now I checking out me own historyI carving out me identity
- The conjunction ‘But’ is the crucial one that changes the trajectory of the poem. The poet is emphatically ‘checking out me own history’. He wishes to take in hand his own education about his own people; to create his own ‘revolution.
- This is the first use of the first person singular “I”. He is at last asserting himself rather than passively accepting what he is taught, taking control of his life and learning about his own culture. OR Before, John Agard spoke about ‘dem’, but now he is mentioning ‘I’. This shows that he is no longer blaming ‘dem’, but is instead taking responsibility himself to find out about his history.
- “Carving” is of course something which takes time and skill, even more demanding because he has been deprived of his own “history” at school, which taught a British curriculum. Agard is suggesting that the process of learning his own cultural history is not straightforward. Moreover, traditional text books omit the achievements of, for example, “Shaka de Great Zulu” and instead focus on white Europeans like “Napoleon”.The significance of “carving” is that the end product is new and often beautiful. Agard knows that by pursuing his own cultural history he will enrich and reveal new aspects of his own identity. The process will difficult but fulfilling.Finally, it is a poem without punctuation; not even at the end. This could suggest that finding his identity is ongoing and will continue long into the future.
- The poem ends with the significant word ‘identity’. This is what the poet feels he has been denied.Note also that there is no full stop, suggesting his story/his history isn’t complete.
- Dem tell me/Dem tell me/Wha dem want to tell me
- context
- He was born in Guyana – when it was still British Guiana – in 1949; his mother was Portuguese and his father was Black.
- The poem was published in a collection entitled Half-Caste and Other Poems (2007), a mixture of old and new poems aimed at a teenage audience. As one of a series of poems chosen to appeal directly to young adults, it deals with the topical issue of historical relevancy: ‘Dem tell me/Wha dem want to tell me'
- The speaker suggests that because Black history and experience has been forgotten or ignored,what was taught to him was irrelevant. More importantly, it ‘Blind me to me own identity’. Only byfinding out for himself about the historical and social achievements of Black people can he develop apersonal identity that reflects his cultural and racial roots.
- form and structure
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