The two poems are very similar because although they are written by people from completely different places, they feel discriminated against because of their accents. In both poems phonetic spellings are used to emphasize the point the poet is trying to make. By using the kind of dialect they speak instead of the proper written language they are trying to show why people think of them differently. In a way they are ridiculing these people because they obviously know how to write properly and are merely using the phonetic spelling to help prove and accentuate the point they are trying to make. However, the phonetic spellings also help make the poems more personal because we can relate to the poet more and what he is trying to prove. It also means that the poem seems more conversational and less organized.
Both poems are similar because their poets have disregarded the conventional forms of a poem. In both poems, hardly any punctuation is used and it is never used regularly. By doing this, the poets are trying to show that this is the type of language that most people would expect from them. In ‘Half-caste’, John Agard misses out words from sentences and misspells words like ‘dem’, ‘wha’ and ‘yu’ to help show his Jamaican accent. This is also done to emphasize that because he is half-caste he must be inadequate. However, the reader knows this is not true and feels ignorant and stupid at the end because John Agard is obviously educated because he knows about Picasso and Tchaikovsky.
In ‘Unrelated Incident’, throughout the whole of the poem phonetic spelling is used. This is done to show that the poet has a different accent and therefore cannot be a news presenter because he does not have a ‘BBC accent’. Throughout the poem Tom Leonard repeats the word ‘troo’/’trooth’ five times just to emphasize the purpose of the poem, that he cannot tell the ‘trooth’ because of his different accent. By using a phonetic spelling, Leonard is ensuring that people assume that he is aggressive and immediately jump to conclusions that he must be because of his Glaswegian accent.
John Agard also uses repetition throughout the poem. In ‘Half-caste’ he repeats the phrase ‘Explain yuself/ wha yu mean’ four times. This creates the impression that as the poem goes on his underlying anger increase because of the repetition of this phrase. At the end of the poem he also repeats ‘de whole of’ three times to contrast what the reader is like, to what the reader thinks John Agard is like. However, instead of the word ‘whole’ having a positive impact, it makes the reader feel narrow-minded and guilty because of their lack of understanding and care in using the word ‘half-caste’. John Agard spells cast as ‘caste’ because of its underlying meaning. The word caste is used in Buddhism to describe the social hierarchy. It was used to show what social class a person came back into in their next life. By using this word in ‘half-caste’, it implies that people think of anyone who is half-cast as very low.
In both poems, the poets use language that we do not understand to make us feel inadequate. This technique is used because poets are writing the poems because they feel that people think that they are inadequate. By using words that the reader is unlikely to understand, the poets are making the reader feel ignorant and inadequate themselves. In ‘Half-caste’ John Agard uses the phrase ‘de sun pass ah rass’, which the reader will not understand meaning they will feel dense. Tom Leonard also does this in ‘Unrelated Incidents by using phrases like ‘belt up’ and ‘wanna yoo scruff’. This is confusing to the reader because although they will get the general idea of what the poet is trying to say, they will not understand it exactly.
We can tell that both poets are using their non-standard English merely as a technique, rather than an inadequacy. This is because although the poems are not written in standard-English, the phonetical spelling is still comprehensible showing that as opposed to the reader’s opinion they are still clever and equal to people who are of single race and who have a ‘BBC accent’.
In both poems, the use of non-standard English adds a lot to the purpose of the poems and helps accentuate the point the poet is trying to make.
