Half-Caste by John Agard How effective is the light-hearted ridicule
in this poem?
In the poem Half-Caste by John Agard the poet uses ridicule to put his
point across, he uses this technique very effectively and many times
and by the end of the poem you realise how stupid the fact of someone
being a Half Caste is.
The poem is about a man from the West Indies and is called Half Caste,
which means of mixed race. The poem starts off with a verse
off three lines all written in Standard English. Even in this very
short part we can see the way the poet is using ridicule when he says
‘standing on one leg’, this is inferring that because he is a
‘half-caste’ he is only standing on one leg and that only one half the
white half of him means anything to most people. It may seem like a
ridiculous idea that he should stand on one leg but it does show how
stupid the idea that someone can only stand on one leg because he is
off mixed race.
The poem then goes into a West Indian accent and it then makes another
example like mixing colours makes him a half-caste. It then says
‘explain yuself’ again as it did at the start of the verse, this is
repeated many times through the poem and becomes a sort of chorus. It
is then always followed by an example, in this case comparing light
and shadow to black and white. Light and shadow is a euphemism for
black and white.
The poem then goes onto a line, which really uses ridicule to get the
point across, but whilst adding a little humour it shows an extremely
vital point that we all as individuals should think about, it says
about English weather being half caste. We all know the joke about
English weather being bad and traditionally always cloudy and rainy.
When we say that the weather is half-caste we are really saying it is
not as good as it should be, do we also mean this when we call a
person of mixed race a ‘half caste’. That line has double intentions
as well as saying about English weather not being very good it also
questions our thoughts on people of mixed race and whether we look
down on them.
The poet then uses light hearted ridicule again when he says about
Tchaikovsky using the black and white key on a piano this is saying
that he is not half caste but what about someone who only uses white
keys does that make them a racist.
The poem is written in the style of free verse. The poet chooses not to separate the poem into stanzas, but only by punctuation. There is no rhyme scheme or individual rhyme present in the poem. The poems structure creates a personal feel for the reader. The reader can personally experience what the narrator is feeling while she experiences stereotyping.
...veryone else. He wakes up every day ready to crow his symbol to bring on that day. In the poem he is ready to protect all the female chickens, from another cock that could be in there house. He is ready to battle to the death for what he thinks is his. In this poem he uses ridicule, when he is talking about the old man in a terminal ward, and he also uses connotations. Some example of connotations are when he uses words like; enraged, sullenly, savagery, unappeased and terminal.
Who is the speaker of the poem? It is not the author necessarily. What can you tell about the speaker from the poem?
Poetry is something that is to be read delicately and cautiously if one wanted to find meaning through the words. Readers have to be gentle and patiently ponder about what they are reading in order to find any significance in the poem. If someone is not patient with reading, they will not feel impacted by poetry and will not want to read it. In Billy Collins’, “Introduction to Poetry,” he uses figurative language to help readers see that the way to enjoy and understand poetry is by reading between the lines and being patient with how each individual relates to the readings.
Humor and Irony are a unique combinations Collins displays in many of his poems, challenging the readers to interpret his work in different perspectives. In “Introduction to Poetry,” Collins offers a witty comparison between the definition of poetry and various other experiments. He asks the reader to “hold [the poem] up to the light/ like a color slide” (1-3), “press an ear against its hive” (4), “drop a mouse into a poem” (5), “walk inside the poem's room” (7), and “waterski across the surface of a poem” (9-10). Rather than stiffly explaining the definition of a poem, he finds creative and humorous approaches to explain his methods of enjoying the poems, and promote the readers’ interest towards discovering the true meaning of poetry. Just as the surrounding would seem different through color slides, he asks the readers to see the world in diverse viewpoints while reading and writing poems. Moreover, by listening to poem’s hive, dropping a mouse, and walking inside its room, Collins encourages readers to discover the concealed depth of poetry. He comments ...
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"The point of view which I am struggling to attack is perhaps related to the metaphysical theory of the substantial unity of the soul: for my meaning is, that the poet has, not a personality' to express, but a particular medium, which is only a medium and not a personality, in which impressions and experiences combine in peculiar and unexpected ways."