The tone is almost bitter in its anger, because Tom Leonard is angry. This is because the announcer not only despises the non Standard English speakers' ability to express the truth, he doesn't even want to give them the opportunity to say anything.
Half-Cast is also in the first-person and in a conversational tone. We can tell it is in the first-person because he uses the words ‘I’m Half-Caste’ on line three. The poet is supposed to be talking to the announcer or prejudice people.
The first three lines of the poem, written in Standard English, seem to belong to one speaker. This is because the way it is written makes it seem as if the second part is by a second speaker. In the rest of the poem, the spelling has been adapted to give the impression of a West Indian accent and the language also reflects a West Indian dialect of English. The second speaker is good humoured, but very outspoken. The spelling is phonetic so that even non-Glaswegians can hear the accent he intends and the sentences are loosely phrased but are not marked by capital letters. The last sentence is given extra emphasis because it is so short.
The structure of Unrelated Incidents is very different to Half-Caste. Unrelated Incidents is set out to look like a news column. It is written in one Stanza without and breaks or pauses. This shows…… Half-Caste is written in four Stanzas. The first and last very short. The first stanza is supposed to be humorous, the second stanza tells us about his situation and what he thinks they mean by saying half-caste. The third stanza is telling the announcer not to be so small minded and the fourth stanza is sort of like a solution. The short sentences in this poem emphasise John Agard’s points.
Both Unrelated Incidents and Half-Caste use non Standard-English, colloquial terms and repetition. Some examples of non-standard English used in Unrelated Incidents are, ‘thi’ and ‘nyooz’ and examples of it used in Half-Caste are ‘yu’ and ‘mih’. An example of repetition in Unrelated Incidents is ‘scruff’. This is a colloquial term for commoner or scum. I think this is used because Tom Leonard feels that the announcer thinks people of his type and speaking in his accent are "scruff", who cannot speak or spell correctly. In Half-Caste the words ‘explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste...’ are repeated four times in the poem. These three lines appear before the speaker is about to give another example. The repetition is therefore a structural device to hold the examples together. It also emphasises the speaker's amazement that the other man should view himself in this way.
Other examples of techniques used in Half-Caste are Rhyme, which is a cohesive device used to give a sort of comic effect. Another example is personification when it says, ‘dem don’t want de sun pass’. The pause between thirty six and thirty seven is there to make the point that he doesn’t trust them because they don’t trust him because he is a half-caste. Also the pronoun 'it' is sometimes left out, as in line nine, where Standard English would say 'it is', not just "is". These changes from Standard English demonstrate that the poem is written in a dialect rather than just an accent. Accents are simply the way that people pronounce words but dialects include variations in vocabulary and grammar.
These poems both have very negative connotations to them and they are both trying to convey the same message that whatever they look like and however they speak they are still human and wish to be looked at like that. They do not want to be made to feel inferior because they have a Glaswegian accent or come from a mixed race. I believe that both of these poems are very good models of how we should look at others in society.