Charollte o neils song-Choose two poems which communicate a sense of injustice, and show how the poets have succeeded in doing this.
The rhythm of the poem is very vigorous and assertive. You can imagine it sung in a rebellious way - she's had enough. The stress falls on the important words in each line, especially the verbs, which emphasises all the physical actions that are being described. Words like 'scrape' and 'scrub' echo each other, and when you say the 'scr' you can hear the effort involved. There's also a strong contrast between 'I' and 'you' right through the poem, which emphasises how different their lives are. In the second half of the poem (after the 'But') she shifts into the future tense as she imagines her new life. The poem finishes on a very definite note, with the final rhyme, like she's slammed the door behind her - her old life's all done and dusted.
Half caste-Choose two poems where the style and language of the poem seem particularly suited to what the poet has to say, and explain in each case why you think this.
The argument of the poem 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 Agard would say it's just a different variety of English. Also, he writes in a jokey 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 Agard wrote the poem. So the way the poem is written suits what it's trying to say
Ogun-Choose two poems in which the final line seems to you especially important. Show in each case how the poem builds towards its ending.
The last word is especially important. The carpenter is angry because even though he works hard and is a good craftsman he is still poor, because imported furniture is doing him out of business. Until then, though, there was nothing about him complaining about his situation, it was as if he just got on with his work. But when he does the carving, it's like he discovers what he really feels, so the 'woodwork image' speaks for him. That's why earlier in the poem it says about 'exploring' the wood and listening to noises 'he had never heard'. He's getting in touch with his anger. It makes me think the god inside the wood is also angry at what has been done to his people when they were taken away from Africa.
OR
The last line is the end of a long sentence which describes the wooden image that the uncle is carving. The sentence describes bit by bit an old mask or face, which is in a bad way. It says ruined, ravaged, and cracked. This is strange because he's only just made it. But the image is 'ancient' and 'enduring' so it seems to go back a long way. It also says 'lost pain, lost iron', so the 'woodwork image' is a sort of expression of all the things the uncle has lost touch with. Carving the image puts him back in touch with old traditions of African wood carving and with ancient forests, because the wood itself is 'still tuned to roots and water'.
Search for my tongue-Choose two poems which deal with the experience of living between two cultures, and show how this experience is reflected in the language of the poems
In English, we use the word 'tongue' to mean 'language' as well as your actual 'tongue'. The poet compares knowing two languages to having two tongues in your mouth, which she calls 'the mother tongue' and 'the foreign tongue'. She is afraid that the mother tongue might shrivel away ('rot and die') like a plant with no roots. But in the last part of the poem, the mother tongue seems to grow back during the night, and 'push the other tongue aside'. It's like when she dreams, she dreams in Gujarati, and this keeps the language alive for her. It connects her to her memories. The image of two tongues growing in your mouth is weird, and a bit disturbing. You can imagine how it would feel. But then it 'blossoms' which also suggests something beautiful. I thought this was a memorable image.
