Checking Out Me History by John Agard: GCSE poem guide

This is ‘Checking Out Me History’ by John Agard, from the Power and Conflict cluster of the AQA anthology. I’m Hannah, and I teach English. The question we’ll answer: How does every part of ‘Checking Out Me History’ fight back against the history the speaker was given? We’ll go through the context, the poem section by section, one quotation explored closely, a model paragraph and the quotations to learn. First, the context.

Born in a colony. John Agard was born in 1949 in British Guiana, then part of the British Empire and now Guyana, in the Caribbean. He moved to Britain in 1977. History from the centre. The history Agard was taught came from the centre of the empire.

The poem sets 1066, Columbus and nursery- rhyme figures against Black heroes he was not told about. The missing heroes. Toussaint L’Ouverture, Nanny de Maroon and Mary Seacole have their stories told in separate italic stanzas. A Creole voice. The poem is written in a voice shaped by Caribbean Creole.

Its spelling is a claim in itself: the speaker’s own language is fit for history and for poetry. ‘Checking Out Me History’ is still in copyright, so I won’t read it here. Open your anthology at the poem and read it twice: once for what happens, once for who is speaking and what changes. Lines 1 to 8: What dem tell me. “Dem tell me”.

A refrain in Creole. The pronoun “Dem” is never explained: the people who control his learning are faceless, which makes them harder to argue with. “Bandage up me eye”. A metaphor: a bandage should heal, but this one covers his eyes. The reader sees an education that blinded him to his own past.

“Dem tell me”. Agard grew up in British Guiana under the British Empire. The 1066 and Dick Whittington he was taught came from the centre of the empire, not from his own people. Lines 9 to 20: Toussaint the beacon. “With vision”.

The first italic stanza uses very short lines of two or three words. The form changes with the subject, and each line lands like a drumbeat. “Napoleon”. Toussaint L’Ouverture, born into slavery, led the Haitian Revolution against French rule. Agard sets this enslaved man against Napoleon, the most famous general in Europe.

“Toussaint de beacon”. A metaphor of light: a beacon guides and warns. The reader sees Toussaint as a hero who shows others the way to freedom. Lines 21 to 30: Nursery rhymes and Nanny. “cow who jump over de moon”.

Rhyming couplets and nursery-rhyme figures make what he was taught sound silly. Agard mocks a history full of nonsense with no room for real heroes. “Nanny de maroon”. Maroons were enslaved people who escaped and lived free in the hills. Nanny was a leader of the Maroons in Jamaica, left out of the history he was taught.

“Fire-woman struggle”. Compound nouns, like “Fire-woman”, pack images into a few words. Fire and water build a picture of Nanny’s energy carrying her people towards freedom. “Nanny de maroon”. The rhyme with “moon” makes the swap clear: a nursery rhyme was taught in place of a real woman.

The reader feels the speaker’s anger at the loss. Lines 31 to 38: Heroes left out. “Shaka de great Zulu”. Each couplet pairs a British name with one left out. A contrasting conjunction opens the second line, so the poem keeps setting one history against another.

“what happen to de Caribs”. The Caribs and Arawaks were peoples of the Caribbean whose numbers fell sharply after Columbus arrived in 1492. The question asks what celebrating Columbus hides. “never tell me bout Mary Seacole”. Rhyme links the nursery-rhyme King Cole with Mary Seacole.

The speaker is angry that a make- believe king was taught and a real nurse was not. And lines 39 to 52. “even when de British said no”. Seacole, from Jamaica, was turned down when she asked to nurse in the Crimean War. She paid her own way there and cared for wounded soldiers.

“A healing star”. A metaphor of light, like the beacon for Toussaint. The adjective “healing” shows her care, and “star” shows how she guided and gave hope. “Dem tell me”. The refrain returns, but this time a new line follows it.

The structure turns: the speaker stops listening and starts acting. “I carving out me identity”. The pronoun “I” replaces “Dem”. The verb “carving” is active and lasting: he builds his own identity, as if cutting it in stone. “I carving out me identity”.

The last line is still in Creole. Agard, raised in a British colony, claims his own language and his own past as fit for poetry and for history. So, to sum it up in one sentence: Agard sets the trivial history the speaker was taught against the Black heroes he was denied, and shows him taking back the power to choose his own past and identity in his own Creole voice. One quotation, explored closely: “Bandage up me eye with me own history”. Try it yourself first: method, zoom in, effect, and the context or purpose.

Method: A metaphor in the speaker’s Creole voice. Zoom in: “Bandage” should heal a wound. Here it covers his eye, so the teaching that claims to help him stops him seeing. Effect: The reader feels his anger: his own history has been used against him, to keep him from knowing who he is. Context: Agard was born in British Guiana and moved to Britain in 1977.

The poem names Black heroes left out of the history he was taught. And here’s a model What–How–Why paragraph for the question: How does Agard challenge the power of the people who decide what history is taught in ‘Checking Out Me History’? Agard challenges the people in power by showing the speaker moving from being told to telling. The refrain “Dem tell me” returns again and again, so the reader hears how often the speaker has been fed someone else’s history. The vague personal pronoun “Dem” is never explained: the power is faceless.

By the last lines the speaker says “I carving out me identity”. The forceful verb “carving” suggests hard, physical work, as if he is cutting a statue out of stone. The power has moved from “Dem” to the speaker himself. Agard was born in British Guiana and moved to Britain in 1977. He wants readers to ask who chooses what history is taught, and to see that people can take that power back.

The quotations from ‘Checking Out Me History’ worth learning by heart. “Dem tell me”. The refrain names the people who control what history is taught. Everything in this video comes from our Power and Conflict poetry scheme of learning for schools. If you’re a teacher, Lesson 3 of every scheme is free at btl.education.

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