checking out me history

• Agard was born in Guyana and received a british education due the country being colonised up until 1966, therefore he and many others were given an Eurocentric view of history, whilst being denied his own cultural identity
• 'dem tell me/dem tell me' - the use of reptition here creates an accusatory tone, showing the speaker's anger
• 'bandage up me eye' - this has injury-like connotations which implies that the speaker feels he has been hurt by his sheltered upbringing
• 'toussaint' - this introduction to italics used highlights the two accounts of history being distinctly separate, as well as you read the italics you are forced to read slower and every line is centred in the middle and its short
• 'de cow who jump over de moon' - this phrase from the semantic field of childhood implies the speaker feels he has lost his childhood and is stuck in the past
• Toussaint L'Ouverture - led the revolution by black slaves against the french colony of Haiti and led to their freedom - then it became the first nation to free itself from slavery - Agard may of used him to symbolise rebellion and resistance of oppression
• Nanny de Maroon - was a female leader of Jamaica maroons who escaped from slavery in Jamaica after being taken from Ghana - she may also symbolise rebellion and resistance
• Shaka de great Zulu - was one of the most influential military leaders of the Zulu kingdom in South Africa
• Mary Seacole - a women who improved hygiene in hospital wards in Crimea and fought against oppression in order to help others and returned to live in poverty
• the dual structure of this poem through the use of italics shows the separation between the history he was taught and black history
• the repetition of 'dem tell me' mirrors rote (repetition of something to be learned) learning and it could be inferred that Agard had to rote learn the history he was taught due to its lack of personal relevance to him, also creates an oppressive tone
• each stanza begins with 'dem tell me' which shows how colonical control has dominated his life in the same way it dominates the poem and the repetition could also be interpreted to allude Agard's emphatic desire to have his message heard
• the rhyme scheme ties together the sections concerning white and black history, showing how Agard is attempting to end segregation through literary unification and throughout a stanza, the rhyming is the same : 'balloon', 'moon', 'spoon', and 'maroon'.
• in this poem black history is given separated and dedicated stanzas, which could be seen to symbolises it finally receiving the respect and significance it deserves and the rich imagery in these stanzas juxtaposes with the almost childish lexis in the other stanzas to show the beautiful and complex nature of black history
• the connection 'but' is used to tie together black and white history implying that they cannot be separated and black history cannot be ignored, the overflowing sentences also show that the speaker is attempting to express too much emotion to be constrained to single line
• the volta 'but now' marks a turning point in the poem as the speaker switches from referring to 'dem' to 'i' and this shows him taking ownership of his own identity and marking the poem about himself rather than them
• motif of light - references to light imagery - 'de beacon to de Haitian revolution', 'fire-woman','a healing star' and 'a yellow sunrise', it can inferred that the speaker associates these figures with light due to their emotional significance to him, also shows that they are a source of guidance for him and the importance of teaching children about these people
• the use of violent metaphor shows the cruelty of colonialism and in the line 'blind me to me own identity' emphasises the deliberate nature of the abuse inflicted by colonial control, also implies that his education has changed the way in which he views the world now
• the active verb used in 'i carving out me identity' creates the impression that this is an ongoing process, also has painful connotations which shows that this process is a painful, implying that he feels pain at having his identity withheld from him for so long
• the verb 'carving' has connotations of wood which shows how the speaker no longer has the neutral plasticity of a child so changing his worldview is long and difficult
• non-standard phonetic spelling - Creole is the native language of an area which has arisen from attempting to speak two different languages and this is present is the non-standard phonetic spelling in 'dem', 'de' and 'bout'
• Agard creates a childish tone through the use a simple rhyme scheme with simple rhyming couplets, which could be that Agard is trying to get children to engage with the poem however, it is more likely that he is implying that the one dimensional Eurocentric view of the world is childish