Homework: Comparison of Half-Caste and Six O’clock News
Half-Caste and Six O’clock News are very different poems. Firstly Half-Caste is written by John Agard whom has a Caribbean background whereas Six O’clock News is written phonetically by Tom Leonard from a Scottish culture. The poems use very different language. “This is thi six a clock new thi man said.” This has a lot of non-standard English and is written how it is spelt. In Half-Caste it is very formal. “Excuse me standing on one leg, I’m half-caste.” The narrator in Half-Caste is trying to get the point across that half-caste people are not half; they are full. Using ridicule, imperatives and repetition he mocks us about the way we judge half-castes. He uses colloquialism speech: “ah rass” and clever sentence structure: “and mix a black key with a white key” to stir the readers minds and really think deeply about the poem. Both poems use very short lines but are both written phonetically. This adds impact and keeps the reader interested rather than long, everlasting lines.