COMH

• "Dem tell me/Dem tell me/Wha dem want to tell me"

  • repetition - protest poem
  • Caribbean dialect - clear identity
  • juxtaposition of pronouns - speaker is gaining power back from 'dem'
• "Touissant/a slave/with vision/lick back/Napoleon"

  • form changes when speaking about Afro-Caribbean history
  • becomes more free verse with unpredictable and quick rhymes
  • restriction when living in UK vs personal freedom - limited rhyme vs. free verse
  • written in italics to highlight history
  • Agard embodies historical figures to combat restrictions on learning history
• "a healing star"

  • Mary Seacole - left Caribbean to be a nurse in Crimean War
  • star - guides the way like Agard wants to guide reader to a new understanding of history
  • healing - wants to inform in a non-violent way
  • constellation in the sky of important characters - every time we look up we see these important figures in history
• "But now I checking out me own history/I carving out me identity"

  • cyclical structure but with a new direction
  • couplet - happy ending as he has become a role model
  • metaphor 'carving out' - sculptor creating beautiful artwork
  • pronoun 'I' - speaker's newfound freedom and self-education
• "Bandage up me eye with me own history"

  • metaphor - visual impairment shows how they're being kept ignorant to history
  • homophone - irony