The Complete Guide to Half-caste
A man is insulted, apologises for interrupting, and then takes the word apart on stage — the whole story of the anthology’s funniest and most dangerous poem.
Introduction
- The poem in one breath — What happens, and why it disarms you
- The man who was told what he was — John Agard in three moves
The world behind the poem
- The word in the dock — Where half-caste comes from, and what it claims
- Poetry that needs a room — Why this poem is a script before it is a page
Through the poem
- First movement: the apology nobody owes — Three lines that set the whole strategy
- Second movement: three witnesses for the defence — Picasso, the English sky, and a piano
- Third movement: the arithmetic turns cold — From half an ear to half a shadow
- Fourth movement: come back tomorrow — The jokes stop, and terms are set
The speaker & voice
- Who is ‘yu’? — The silent listener, and why it might be you
- The voice that never bleeds — Tracking the tone from clowning to command
The writer’s craft
- How the jokes do the arguing — The comic machinery, taken apart
- Spelling as politics — Creole, missing punctuation, and the page as a battlefield
Interpretations
- Four arguments worth having — Where readers genuinely disagree
The examination
- Choosing the second poem — Three pairings, and what each one lets you argue
- Forty minutes, thirty marks — How to actually write the Section B essay