Compare and Contrast Search for my tongue and Half caste

The Poem "Half caste" was written by John Agard, It refers to being half caste, someone of mixed skin colour and race. In the poem the persons mother is Portuguese while his father was born in the Caribbean .His mother is white and his father is black skinned. The poet writes that by being half caste you feel unaccepted and different. The poem has been written very much like the poem "the Beggar woman" because the poem is intended to be intended to be performed to an audience.

The poet is beginning to set the scene and get their attention; he wants to make them consider what it is like to be half caste, and try to get people to accept him.

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John Agard has written this poem to be performed in pubs, it is a poem that needs to be performed standing up possibly on a table and delivered to the audience with emotion and expression. The poem is intended to make the audience laugh, by using humour the poet gets the audiences attention and the poet asks the audience to accept him. By standing on one leg he is being sarcastic and mocking, he is suggesting this stance is because he is half caste and therefore only half a person and half a class. He finds the word "caste" insulting but "half caste even more so.

The poet suggests that it is only the audience who thinks he is only half a man. The poet is abrupt and angry at intolerant people, he informs the audience by acting and talking to them and by adding a visual image he makes them laugh.

As the audience laugh at him the poet becomes forceful and demands to know what people mean when they use the words half caste. "Explain yuself wha yu mean", he uses Caribbean dialect "yuself" "yu" to set him apart from the audience and show he is different and proud. He is open and conversational to show he is different and he doesn't feel he has to be formal and correct.

The poet feels that white people look down on black people and he uses his dialect to exaggerate the way they look at him. By standing above the audience it allows him to look down on them. He uses a series of examples to discuss what half caste means, do you mean when Picasso mixes red and green paint together to produce brown, which he reflects is his colour.Agard deliberately doesn't use a capital letter for Picasso because he ignores all grammar and punctuation rules.

The poet does not speak or punctuate properly as if he is of a lower class because he is half caste. He makes the same demands of the audience, "explain yuself wha yu mean when yu say half caste" He asks how the audience feels as light and dark are mixed in the sky, "mix in de sky" he makes a joke by commenting on the English weather, "England weather nearly alwas half caste". Because he is from a Caribbean background he uses a pun on the word "overcast" to suggest we have too many classes. He feels we are going too far, now it is not amusing that class or caste are stopping people thinking about individuals and their feelings, "so spiteful dem

don't want de sun pass". In England the clouds group together so the sun will not pass through the clouds, the clouds are like people discriminating against others because they are prejudiced, the poet talks about people who use the word half caste being like the clouds hiding something beautiful. The poet discusses how angry he is at how arrogant people are who use the word half caste as they think they are higher in society. He shouts at them and is rude "ah rass/"and he dismisses his audience.

The poet next demands his audience to yet again explain "what yu mean" about the word half caste, is it about music "yu mean Tchaikovsky" about how his symphonies were a mix of black and white keys of a piano. The poet doesn't use a capital letter for Tchaikovsky because we imagine him composing a half caste symphony. Again he refuses to follow the rules of English Grammar using Creole grammar and by doing this he is insulting the audience who have been prejudiced and showing them he is proud of what he is writing.

By telling the audience he is only listening with half his ear and looking at you with half his eye because the audience think of him as half a man and many people use the phrase without realising how offensive it is. "half of mih ear", "half of mih eye", he will only offer them half a hand when they meet him as he has no respect for them. He reflects that when he is asleep he only closes half an eye and produces half a shadow and this reminds us of the contrast between black and white.

With this he tells the audience to come back when they have changed there opinion and tells them to consider him "but yu must come back tomorrow" he is giving them a opportunity come back tomorrow. Then the poet mentions the whole of his ear, he has mirrored his ideas to emphasize the idea he is a whole person and is valued as much as the next man. He is saying at the moment they aren't ready for the other half of his story

He tries to get the audience on his side so they can appreciate his feelings. He continually mocks the audience making his own personal jokes which keeps the audience keen; he feels the audience still are not ready for his story because he is more complex than them. He feels the audience can't understand the complexities of him and his multi racial background. The poet uses lots of examples such as Picasso, Tchaikovsky and the English weather; he mixes elements from different cultures in an attempt to make things better. The examples he uses are funny and intended to amuse, they poke fun at the audience and show them that it is wrong to judge a book by its cover. At line 33 the poem changes and becomes more serious and aggressive, although it began light hearted it then becomes serious reminding that he is a mix