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Checking Out Me History Lyrics. Dem tell me. Dem tell me. Wha dem want to tell me. Bandage up me eye with me own history. Blind me to me own identity. Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat. Dem tell ...
- London
I wander thro' each charter'd street, / Near where the...
- London
a healing star. among the wounded. a yellow sunrise. to the dying. Dem tell me. Dem tell me wha dem want to tell me. But now I checking out me own history. I carving out me identity. From Half-Caste and Other Poems (Hodder Children's, 2004), John Agard 2004, used by permission of the author c/o Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency.
- Toussaint L’Ouverture
- Nanny The Maroon
- Shaka kaSenzangakhona
- Mary Seacole
- Checking Out Me History
Lines 1-9
The narratorof this poem is introduced through their voice, relayed through words such as “dem” and “wha,” better understood as “them” and “what,” which indicates to the reader immediately that English is not likely the native language of the speaker. So, when they refer to a “dem,” they are likely referring, as a whole, to the community whose language they speak. The reference to “blinding” them against their own identity suggests a colonial relationship between the speaker and “dem.” Dick W...
Lines 10-21
The next set of lines reveals that the narrator knows exactly who Toussaint is, and also that he looks up to and respects the historic figure a great deal. The structure of the poem changes temporarily here, taking on a faster pace, and an almost chant-like quality when the rhyming begins to take hold (“Lick back / Napoleon / Battalion / And first Black / Republic born / Toussaint de thorn” — try reading it out loud). He points out, for instance, that Toussaint was able to defeat (“lick back”...
Lines 22-31
These lines repeat the themes from the last few but in a much more pronounced way. The reference to The Cow Who Jumped Over The Moon is especially noteworthy, being such a trivial and unimportant story that it pales in comparisonto the vast majority of history from anywhere. The narrator notes in their school that they’ve learned about the man who discovered balloons (whose name isn’t even mentioned, unlike the historical figures important to the speaker), but not about figures such as Nanny...
Lines 32-35
For these lines, the histories of English fighters and battles continue. Lord Horatio Nelson, an officer of the British Navy famous for losing an arm and an eye before losing his life after continually fighting and achieving victory after victory during the Napoleonic Wars, is something the speaker learns about. The Battle of Waterloo, where Napoleon was defeated and forced to abdicate his position as French Emperor is also mentioned. The verse mentions Shaka kaSenzangakhona, one of the most...
Lines 36-39
The history of the Crimean War, a natural topic in an English classroom environment, would be missing some of its significance if Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole were not mentioned — except that Nightingale was British and Seacole was Jamaican, and this makes all the difference. Florence Nightingale was a highly reputable and devoted nurse during the Crimean War, known for making rounds in the middle of the night (with her lamp) to care for wounded soldiers. Seacole performed a similar...
Lines 40-49
Once again we see that the speaker is very familiar with Seacole’s story, including the fact that she was rejected by the British government when she requested to go overseas to help England troops. This didn’t stop her — she traveled on her own, with her own money, and set up the hotel herself, and wound up destitute upon her return. Despite this, in one of the more abstract and poetic aspects of ‘Checking Out Me History’, she is described as “a yellow sunrise / to the dying,” a metaphor tha...
Lines 50-53
The final lines of ‘Checking Out Me History’reflect the first verse in nature, adding on two very important lines, wherein the narrator declares that they are unwilling to accept one side of the story of history, and are searching for the truth behind what they are told in a classroom. This suggests that it’s possible that the figures examined in the poem are not conjured from the memory of childhood stories, but are rather being researched as the poem is being written, and as the narrator “c...
La Belle Dame sans Merci: summary ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci.’ ‘The woman is beautiful, but merciless.’ Keats’s title, which he got from a 15 th-century courtly love poem by Alain Chartier (La Belle Dame sans Mercy), provides a clue to the poem’s plot: in summary,the poem begins with the speaker asking a knight what’s wrong – this knight-at-arms is on his own, looking pale as he ...
Oct 10, 2023 · Dem tell me. Dem tell me. Wha dem want to tell me. The context behind ‘Checking Out Me History’ is key to understanding its deeper message. The writer, John Agard, is a Guyanese poet born in Grantham, British Guiana, in 1949 where he grew up before moving to London in 1977. He, therefore, spent his formative years in Guiana as a British ...
A performance of the poem, 'Checking Out Me History' by the poet John Agard, in a secondary school setting. This is from the BBC series, Poets in Person. This short film will be relevant for ...
"Checking Out Me History" was written by the British Guyanese poet John Agard and first published in 2005, in the collection Half-Caste.The poem focuses on the holes in the British colonial education system—particularly that system's omission of important figures from African, Caribbean, and indigenous history.
