English
John Agard: Half-Caste
John Agard came to England from Guyana in 1977. Like many people from the Caribbean, he is mixed race - his mother is Portuguese, but born in Guyana and his father is black. One of the things he enjoys about living in England is the wide range of people he meets: 'The diversity of cultures here is very exciting'.
However, one of the things he doesn't like is the view of racial origins, which is implied in the word 'half-caste', still used by many people to describe people of mixed race. The term now is considered rude and insulting. Find out more about the word 'caste' at the end of this section.
Unfortunately, we can't reproduce the poem 'Half-Caste' here, so it may be helpful for you to have your copy of the AQA Anthology to hand.
The speaker in the poem ridicules the use of the term 'half-caste' by following the idea through to its logical conclusion:
The poet asks the listener to begin to think in a more open-minded way.
The poem is written in five stanzas of varying lengths. Look carefully at the gaps between the stanzas (lines 38/39, 47/48 and 50/51). Why do you think the poet left these gaps, when the sentence seems to run on into the next stanza?
The lines throughout the poem are quite short, perhaps to hammer home the message.
When you read the poem, you will notice that certain phrases (eg 'Explain yuself, half') are repeated or echoed, which builds up a pattern in the language. Do you think that this repetition is a successful way of strengthening the impact of his argumentargument: A text's central thought or sequence of ideas. (Not to be confused with an argy-bargy!)?
The poem relies on comparisons to make us see how stupid it is to judge things that are in contrasting colours as only 'half' worthy. He uses examples of great and famous artists (Picasso and Tchaikovsky). What is the effect of this?
He also uses the weather as an example of something that is full of contrasting colour. Think about what the poet is doing when he uses the phrase 'overcast' (line 20). It sounds like the same word as 'caste' with an 'e', but is actually an entirely different word. Do you think this adds to the humour of the poem? Agard said: 'I think humour can be very powerful. Humour breaks down boundaries, it topples our self-importance, it connects people, and because it engages and entertains, it ultimately enlightens.'
The poet has decided not to use standard English in this poem.
Try reading the poem aloud. What sort of tone should it be read in?
Select a short quotation (or quotations) to justify your choice.
Finally, what idea is the poet seeking to get across in this poem? Why did he write it? John Agard himself said of this poem:
"This imposition of half, half, half on a person's total human complexity implies that some sort of 'purity' has been subverted. A child of mixed race is a tangible, loving expression of human beings from different cultural backgrounds getting together - that should be seen not as something threatening, but as something enriching..."
John Agard
Now try a Test Bite
Read this question carefully. It is similar to the type of question you will be asked in the exam
Choose two poems where the style and language of the poem seem particularly suited to what the poet has to say, and explain in each case why you think this.
If you are ready to practise writing a full answer, you should spend 40 minutes on this, and write about two poems. In the exam itself, you will only have 30 minutes for this question.
For each poem:
If you would prefer to concentrate on just John Agard's poem at this stage, write for 20 minutes.
In writing about John Agard's poem, you could include short paragraphs about:
If you want to practise writing a full answer, you could actually choose any of the other poems as your second one, because this is a very broad question. However, the poems by Sujata Bhatt or Tom Leonard would be good choices.
When writing about two poems, you should try and end by making a comparison between the two. In what ways are the poems similar - in style of language, or in ideas? In what ways are they different?
The poet says excuse me standing on one leg I'm half-caste. Half-cast means when you have two different races, like when a canvas is red and green.
mix red and green is a half-caste canvas.
But he says if you come back tomorrow you will see a different (whole) person instead of only half the story.
and I will tell you de other half of my story.
Examiner's Note:
The argument of the poem comes out in the way it is written. You could almost say that the poem is written in a mixed language - it's a kind of English, but it's also in Caribbean. The poet writes 'wid' and instead of 'with' to show that the speaker has a Caribbean accent. Some people might call this half-caste language, saying that it's not proper English, but Agard would say it's just a different variety of English. Also, he writes in a jokey style, like I explained above, it's like he's teasing people who think he's "only" half-caste, and taking the mickey is a good way of putting your ideas across, and making people think again, which is why Agard wrote the poem. So the way the poem is written suits what it's trying to say.
Examiner's Note