Checking Out Me History

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Checking Out Me History by John Agard

John Agard was born in Guyana, which in his time of education, was a British colony. He moved to Britain in 1977.

His poetry focuses mainly on ethnicity and identity as well as social observations.

Checking Out Me History criticises the Euro-Centric view of history told in schools, and the retelling of history depends on the narrator.

Checking Out Me History is featured in a collection of poems titled 'Half-Caste', which concerns race and cultural identity.

Structure

The building of rhyme in th verses, common to hip hop, emphasises the black cultural figures at the end of each stanza. It forces the reader to stop and the black historical figures.

Many stanzas finish on figures on black historcal figures.

Enjambament- 'but' compoud sentences

This suggests ange- and the unrestrained emotion concerning the lack of cultural education. This forces the reader to combine both black and white cultural figures together- all these people belong together in history and neither is more important than another because of their race.

"Dem tell me" - Repititon suggest anger towards society concerning the miseducation.

References to nursery rhymes in the verses about white culture and childlike ehyme scheme similiar to…

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Detofox

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Very good thank u