Checking out me history

• structure-

  doesn't follow English structure to defy the colonisers

  • no punctation
  • rhyme - forces both white and black historical figures into one segment many times - think of them collectively (contrasts how Agard feels the black figures have been ignored in the education system) - builds up rhyme and climaxes in the final line emphasis the point - stanza's end with black figures (makes us think about them)
  • enjambment - Agard witing down all the facts so he doesn't forget about his culture/history - uses conjunction 'but' repeated to criticise the education system - anger, creates distrust and annoyance towards those who teach
• John Agard

  • born in Guyana 1949 - moved to England in 1977
  • poetry focuses on ethnicity and identity
  • went to school in Guyana - he's angry at the Eurocentric curriculum he was taught
• black figures

  • Toussaint - lead slaves to victory in Haitian Revolution (was on the French side but switched when they took over Haiti)
  • Mary Seacole - nurse in the Crimean war who saved many people - got rejected by GB so had to help through the Caribbean nurses
  • Mary de Marron - saw a vision and prevent a lot of people from becoming slaves - 'see-far woman'
  • Shaka de Zulu - general of the Zulu tribe who were the only people who stopped GB from colonising them with their warrior skills (GB underestimated their intelligence)
• white mockery

  • Dick Whittington - poor boy with nothing but a cat - became Mayor of London
  • Cow jumped over the moon - nursery rhyme
  • Robbin Hood - stole from the rich gave to the poor

  used to mock English history - they are fairy tales that makes English history seem childish
• poem is meant to be sang so it is hard to forget the message and is easy to pass on - Oral Poetry
• 'bandage up me eye with me own history'

  • 'bandage' - suggests wounded, education has wounded him by not teaching him about his history
  • 'me' - repeated through out the poem - non-formal language
  • 'eye' - deliberately being shielded from his history
• 'I carving me own identity'


  'I' - pronoun, he is doing it

  'me' - belongs to him

  'carving' - verb - strenuous - he is deliberately forgetting English history and is seeking his own to prove a point

  'identity' - noun - what makes him him, he feels his history makes him who he is
• 'Dem'


  refusing to work with English rules

  clearly want to be separate from the colony
• short lines = anger
• '1066 and all dat'


  '1066' - historical reference to Battle of Hasting

  'and all dat' - diminishes its importance
• 'healing star.... yellow sunrise'


  describes Mary Seacole

  'healing star' - she is out of this world, she heals people like a God

  'yellow sunrise' - warmth, life, hope