Half Caste (poem) - Style

Style

The poem is written in a mixture of English dialects; Standard English, Caribbean and Creole forms are all used. The "yu" that runs throughout the poem appears to be directed at the reader, whose assumed prejudices towards people of mixed-race descent, and in particular the belief that "purity" is superior to heterogeneity, are critiqued and ultimately shown to be fallacious. Agard explores this idea through a series of apparently light-hearted images, all of which in some way appeal to the cultural pretensions of a (white) reader who views a "half-caste" person as in some way inferior to themselves. The poet offers, for example, the analogy of English weather, a Tchaikovsky symphony and paintings by Picasso. In all three cases he argues that it is the heterogeneity of the images that lend them their peculiar force and cultural resonance.

In the second half of the poem Agard turns the "half" around to focus on the reader and how he, Agard, has been perceived in the past. His argument is, essentially, that people have only used part of their perceptive faculties, and, as such, he can only extend "half a hand" to them. It is, Agard believes, up to the reader to extend their own mode of seeing to be able to comprehend the meaning of a "half-caste" person, and only then will he "tell yu / de other half / of my story."