Checking Out Me History

Question 1

Who is the poet of checking out me history and what are some contextual points on them ?

Answer 1

John Agard
- born in Guyana but moved to Britain
- conventionally focuses on identity and ethnicity

Question 2

What is the context for the poem ?

Answer 2

Education having a Eurocentric view
- Guyana, British colony and European customs being enforced

Question 3

How can we analyze the structure of the poem v

Answer 3

Repetition of ‘dem’
- creates a feeling of overwhelming aggression from this power
Enjambment
- anger and overwhelming emotion

Question 4

How can we analyze the form ?

Answer 4

Quatrains mimicking nursery rhymes
Irregular rhyme but sidings euphoric which is symbolic of the irregular customs brought over by British colonialists to Guyana

Question 5

What is the form of the poem ? Why is this important ?

Answer 5

Oral poetry
- confirms to the conveyor a if hiring about history

Question 6

What are the 4 quotes you should know for this poem ?

Answer 6

1. ‘ bandage up me eye with me own history, blind me to me own identity’
2. ‘ I carving out me identity’
3. ‘Dem’
   4.’ De cow who jumper over the moon’

Question 7

What is a good qoute showing the speakers feelings about his identity ?

Answer 7

‘Bandage up me eye with me own history, blind me to me own identity’
- metaphor of control
- he is physically stoped from learning about his own history

Question 8

How can we analyze the last line of the poem ?

Answer 8

‘ I carving out me identity’
- he has to do it actively and seek out his own history
- ‘carving’ implies Force so we get this metaphor of him fighting the system
- end of poem and is symbolic of how he has now found himself

Question 9

How can we analyze the language used ?

Answer 9

Colloquial Caribbean phonetic spelling
- forces the reader to accept his identity as he refuses to conform to the British conventions of poetry
- ‘dem’
- lack of punctuation further emphasizes how he is braking this set of rules forced upon us

Question 10

How can we analyze the references in the poem ?

Answer 10

Intertextual references to nursery rhymes
‘ de cow who jumped over the moon’
- the presentation of history is fictional and western sized so the the poet mocks this by intertwining nursery rhymes into the poem as history to him seems so fictional it’s like a nursery rhyme