The two poems I have chosen to compare are 'Half-caste' by John Agard and 'They'll say, "She must be from another country"' by Imtiaz Dharker. Both of the poems are about personal identity and coming to terms with your heritage

Agard then goes on to use symbolism to try and help definition of this “half-caste” term. “Yu mean when picasso mix red and green is a half-caste canvas.” Here is he saying that when Picasso, probably the most famous painter of the 20th century painted half-caste or, in his so-called superiors eyes, inferior painting when he mixed two colours. Notice how there is no use of capital letters, showing no acknowledgment of “picasso” being a name. This symbolism is seen throughout the poem in different examples, in the next one he refers to the weather in England; “Yu mean when light an shadow mix in de sky is a half-caste weather/” this idea is then turned against the English; “well in dat case England weather nearly always half-caste” here he is saying that English weather is nearly always “inferior” because it is not always a perfect, clear blue sky, but often a mixture of grey rain clouds and other things..

Further on in his poem, Agard uses more of this symbolism, this time relating to music; “yu mean tchaikosky sit down at dah piano an mix a black key wid a white key is a half-caste symphony.” Here Agard is saying that even Tchaikovsky, one of the most famous composers ever, composed “half-caste”, which is believed to mean something impure, or of lower quality, music. Also, the word “symphony” implies harmony and beauty, and this means that something half-caste can be harmonic and beautiful. After this, we see him make the bold challenging statement of “explain yuself” yet again. He says that he only has a half an eye; “I close half-a-eye consequently when I dream I dream half-a-dream and when moon begin to glow I half-caste human being cast half-a-shadow” Here he is saying that he is half-caste, so, according to the white people’s logic, he must ony have half of the things normal people have, for he is inferior, and only half-caste, not whole..

Immediately after this, Agard says to the reader that they “must come back tomorrow wid de whole of yu eye an de whole of yu ear an de whole of yu mind.”
Here he repeats of “whole” instead of “half”. He is telling the reader to come back with an open mind instead of a prejudice one. Then he says “an I will tell yu de other half of my story” this means that he isn’t inferior and does have another half, which people can learn about if they so wish, because people only know what they accept.