Checking Out Me History - John Agard

‘Dem tell me, dem tell me, wha dem want to tell me’

• use of repetition here creates accusatory tone, showing speaker’s anger

  • anaphora

• ‘dem’ = ‘them’

  • deixis

  • grouping people together - not as individuals

• selective history

• phonetic spelling implies Jamaican accent

• Repeated at the end of the poem

  • cyclical structure

• speaking for immigrants, black people, mixed race people & other ethnic minorities in the UK

  • only taught what british education system deems appropriate to impart

‘bandage up my eye … blind me’

• a central metaphor showing how formal education obscured his true self, with ‘bandage’ ironically suggesting harm instead of healing’

• injury - like connotations that imply that the speaker feels he has been hurt by his sheltered upbringing

• plosive b’s creates underlying tone of aggression

• motifs'/symbolism of sight - eye, blind, (later - vision, see-far)

‘but now I checking out me own history, I carving out me identity’

• volta - ‘but now’ marks a turning point in the poem as the speaker switches from referring to ‘dem’ to ‘I’

  • this shows him taking ownership of his own identity and making the poem about himself rather than them

  • changes the trajectory of the poem

• ‘carving’ - ongoing process

  • a strong, active verb showing his deliberate effort to form his own sense of self

• ‘I carving out me identity’

  • contrats to ‘blind to me own identity’

  • shows how the poem shows speaker journey to resolution

• autodidactic - he teaches himself

  • no need for educational establishments

• no full stop at the end of the poem suggests his story / history isn’t complete

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