Comparative essay between two poems namely, Half - Caste by John Agard and Unrelated Incidents by Tom Leonard.
This is a comparative essay between two poems namely, Half - Caste by John Agard and Unrelated Incidents by Tom Leonard.
You can clearly see before you begin to read these poems that they are set out differently to your average poem. For example in Unrelated Incidents that there are no more than four words per poem. The punctuation in Unrelated Incidents is based on the phanetic way of spelling, this means that you spell the way speak and pronounce words. The poems is also meant to be spoken in a Glaswegian accent. In Half - Caste it's spelt and meant to be spoken in a Caribbean Patois.
In both poems they're defending the way that they are (The colour of his skin in Half - Caste and his accent in Unrelated Incidents). In Half - Caste he defends himself by saying that you don't discriminate against a Picasso painting or a Tchaikovsky symphony because they're half - caste, but in Unrelated Incidents his defence is slightly difference claiming that there are never any over news readers apart from ones with posh and standard English accents.
Unrelated Incidents
Tom Leonard was born in Glasgow. He has described his childhood upbringing as 'working class West of Scotland Irish Catholic' (his father was from Dublin). Although his passport identifies him as a 'British' citizen, Tom Leonard sees himself as thoroughly Scottish.
Unrelated incidents, the poem. Is set out as if it was being read off a television autocue. There is very little punctuation and the words are spelt phonetically. The way that this poem is written, it is written like this because the poem is about BBC newsreaders. Its laid out as if it was being read ...
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Tom Leonard was born in Glasgow. He has described his childhood upbringing as 'working class West of Scotland Irish Catholic' (his father was from Dublin). Although his passport identifies him as a 'British' citizen, Tom Leonard sees himself as thoroughly Scottish.
Unrelated incidents, the poem. Is set out as if it was being read off a television autocue. There is very little punctuation and the words are spelt phonetically. The way that this poem is written, it is written like this because the poem is about BBC newsreaders. Its laid out as if it was being read on the 6 o'clock news.
Almost all his poetry is written in his own Glasgow dialect. His aim has always been to make poetry using 'my own ordinary working-class West of Scotland speech, that is still poetry'. He says he is interested in 'the political nature of voice in British culture'.
The poem is carefully written in a phonetic version of the Glasgow accent. If you pronounce it exactly as it's written, it should sound more or less like a Glaswegian voice. Tom Leonard has played with language in a number of ways, apart from the phonetic spelling: there is almost no punctuation, there are lots of slang and colloquial words like "scruff" and "belt up", the newsreader talks directly to the reader .
Tom Leonard is arguing that this is the way the media thinks about him. He believes that the media see the viewers in Glasgow, or indeed the viewers in most other parts of Britain, as "scruffs". Which isn't fair and is a form of racism. The humour has a satirical edge, he uses humour to make serious criticisms.
In the persona of the announcer he states that you wouldn't want him to give the news in any other accent or dialect, because you wouldn't accept that it was true, a voice speaking in a working class accent and using slang is given less credit and has less authority than a BBC voice.
Halfe - Cast
I think that the gentleman writing this poem (in a rather strange vernacular I own) is somewhat confused.
To my mind 'half-caste' refers to one born of two parents, one of a race where the predominant skin colour is black and the other typically white European, or white European origin. The author seems to have ascribed the suggestion that 'half-caste' also implies a series of negative value judgements about character, expectations, lifestyle and intelligence on to the term, when in fact there is no such allocation. Because he feels that being of a mixed race he has to live up to some sort of stereotype, when clearly he doesn't.
The argument of the John Agard 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 John Agard would say it's just a different variety of English. Also, he writes in a joking 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 John Agard wrote the poem. So the way the poem is written suits what it's trying to say.
The speaker in the poem ridicules the use of the term 'half-caste' by following the idea through to its logical conclusion: Should Picasso be seen as second-rate because he mixed a variety of colours in his paintings? Should the English weather be scorned because it is full of sun and darkness? Should Tchaikovsky's music be seen as inferior because he used both the black notes and the white notes on the piano? Is someone who is called a 'half caste' only half a person? John Agard asks the reader to begin to think in a more open-minded way.
The poem is set out is a peculiar way as it only contains a maximum of 8 words per line. Also this poem contains no punctuation at all. I think that this is put in to create an impact on the reader. He has also spelt his words the way as he would speak them. It's a way of phonetic speaking.
Overall both poems are tying to prove the same point, that they are discriminated because of who they are. John Agard for being half - cast and Tom Leonard because of his Scottish accent.
By
Alex Bowring
1m2
