Poems From Other Cultures- John Agard and Sujata Bhatt Essay

Search for My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt and Half-Caste by John Agard, are poems that both explain the struggles of living with mixed heritages and being split between the two. They both express there opinion in different ways, Bhatt using symbolism and Agard using confrontational speech and metaphors. Agard’s poem portrays the racist connotations associated with the word Half-caste and he effectively puts across his true feelings on the subject. Agard was born in Guyana and like most Caribbean people Agard is bi-racial, being born of a white Portuguese mother and a black Caribbean father. Consequently, Agard is going to be dealing with several issues as he has to live between two languages, three cultures, and living in a country that comfortably uses words such as ‘half-caste’ without thinking about the negative undertones that can dampen his spirit and pride in being of duel-heritage. Similarly, Bhatt writes about her struggle of living between two cultures, but unlike Agard she is of one race, Indian. Bhatt and her family moved to the West when Bhatt was still young and there she learned English in addition to her first language, Guajarati. Bhatt’s poem explains the difficulty of having two languages, the fear of looses a native language when living abroad, and ultimately suggests that language is the centre of an identity. She does, however, comes to the conclusion that even though you may not speak your mother tongue on a regular, day-to-day basis it will always be with you and that you cannot loose who you are. Agard presents his words in a unique and abrupt method. He puts his poem into five stanzas that vary in length; this could be so it sounds like someone talking not a verse, showing that he wanted the fluidity of the poem to feel real, and not rehearsed. He also flaunts his poem by using short lines, â€Å"explain yuself† to maybe be abrupt and direct, giving his poem a confrontational feel but he also may do this as a symbolic gesture as he only has ‘half’ a line, half a self, half a human. By doing this he is challenging the term half-cast and highlighting its negative impact and connotations, he is also exploiting it and making the term seem ridiculous. Conversely, Bhatt presents her poem as one long stanza and has written it by using longer lines. It is written with fluidity, and ease, this is because she wanted the two languages, Guajarati and English, to mesh into one and almost become one language. By structuring the poem and putting the Guajarati in the middle of the poem this shows that it is the focal point of her life, and is in the middle of her mind and centres her thoughts. Having English on either side this could be to show that there is more English in her life but the language that holds it all together is her mother tongue, Guajarati. Both poems are multi-lingual with Agard mixing Patios and English. In his sentences he has casually overlapped colloquial English and patois; you could say that the poem is half English half patois showing that he is half of each, emphasising his original message of the poem. The language that Agard has used has made his poem read like a conversation. His use of colloquial English has added to this, but the way he opens his poem in very formal and polite, this could be to get the attention of the reader, or to mimic ‘posh people’. He also introduces the poem by saying â€Å"excuse me, standing on one leg, I’m half-caste† to say that the first thing people want to know is his race not him, his name, or his personality. Also the connotations with standing on one leg, saying that he is only worth to stand on one leg and that being half-caste mean he is half a man. Also by using metaphors such as â€Å"yu mean when light and shadow, mix in de sky, is half-caste weather?† he is accentuating the stupidity of the phrase half-caste and how observed the word truly is. His language also has hints of subtle humour. For example, â€Å"well in dat case, England weather, nearly always half-caste†. Here he is making fun of English weather saying that it isn’t good as it is always half light and half dark and he is saying that people are constantly surrounded by ‘half-caste’ images but never pick up on them so why should him and him only be subjected to this, what can be perceived as racist, phrase. As well as the above Agard emphasises the argument by constantly repeating words such as â€Å"explain yuself, what yu mean†. This fully drills the argument with full impact constantly asking the reader to change their attitude towards the term ‘half-caste’. Bhatt has a very blatant language variation in her poem as she has written in Guajarati and English two extremely different languages. This use of Guajarati shows that her life is mixture of both and that her Guajarati will near be lost and will always be in her thoughts and life. Also in this poem Bhatt uses the word ‘I’ allot, â€Å"you ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue,† by doing this Bhatt is constantly referring to herself making it much more likely for other multi ethnic people to relate to the poem. What’s more Bhatt uses some very powerful lines for instance, â€Å"if you had two tongues in your mouth, and you lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue†. In these lines Bhatt talks about their tongues being in conflict, never really fully mixing or complementing each other, but she also talks about how without each other they wouldn’t work. Furthermore Bhatt writes about how you will never lose the mother tongue, â€Å"†¦but overnight when I dream, it grows back†¦the bud opens†¦it blossoms out of my mouth†, this says and shows that the reinforcement of the mother tongue is unstoppable and by using the metaphor of a flower, it makes it beautiful. Agard has filled his poem up to the brim with many different metaphors and images. All of the images he uses like, â€Å"yu mean Tchaikovsky, sit down at dah piano, and mix a black key, wid a white key, is a half-caste symphony?†, emphasise the ridiculousness of the term, and it also highlights that if you use the term half caste for people then you need to use it for everything even things that are highly respected in society. In addition to these images Agard writes some very obscure and irregular images in the third stanza of the poem. Agard goes on to say, â€Å"an when I’m introduces to yu, I’m sure you’ll understand why I offer yu half-a-hand, and when I sleep at night I close half-a-eye†. These are very powerful images that Agard is writing and they are one final punch in the poem to try and truly highlight the complete stupidity of the term half-caste and also by making many references of half-a-human this can show that the term of half-caste can hurt and be offensive as well as not necessary. Finally in the last six lines of the poem Agard says that it is us who isn’t whole and we need to listen to his story with â€Å"de whole of yu mind† to truly understand the ‘other half’ of his story. These lines flip the racist connotations of the term saying that those who use it are the true ‘not whole’ people. Bhatt has one major image that carries the whole poem through the words and making the poem flow. She referees to languages as plants. For example, â€Å"it grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins†¦it blossoms†. Bhatt does this to show clearly what she means by ‘loosing he tongue’ because plants die when in the wrong environment and they need nutrients of their home soil to live, so she is saying that so your mother tongue doesn’t die you need to feed it with culture of your home. Also Bhatt may use the idea of plants as this accentuates the fact that when you become comfortable with the fact that you have ‘two tongues’ you can grow, blossom and enrich yourself with confidence. She also uses lines that create strong images like, â€Å"your tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out.† By saying that you must spit it out shows how disgusted she is by the fact that she thinks that she has lost her mother tongue. Throughout Agard’s poem there is a mixture of many tones. There is a slight angry tone; he is slightly warning those that use the word half-caste. He constantly says â€Å"explain yuself† and by doing so he is almost threatening the reader, he is challenging the reader to try and explain why this term should be acceptable. There is also a very slight apologetic tone to the poem, in the first stanza especially, as the poem begins with the line, â€Å"excuse me†, almost like he is apologising for being mixed race, again emphasising the utter silliness of the term half-caste. The entire poem has the tone of over exertion of all emotions; again i feel that this is just to highlight the ridiculous phrase that is half-caste. Unlike Agard’s poem half-caste, Bhatt has a much more peaceful and calm tone to her writing. Her poem flows of the tongue and is read very gently. This could almost be to emphasise the idea that sleep, a calm concept, unlocking the mother tongue, or is to make sure that the idea of anger isn’t brought across but it is more the idea of confusion and the idea of being lost without the mother tongue. I think that Agard is almost vulgarly blatant with his message that the term half-caste shouldn’t be used and demines people that are mixed race. He argues the idea that when two opposite are mixed it creates something better, new and exciting. For example he writes â€Å"yu mean when Picasso mix red an green is a half-caste canvas?† he is almost using reverse psychology as Picasso by mixing red and green created an amazing canvas. He is using this poem to make it clear to people how offending this term can be and that it can truly rip a man’s pride in half. Bhatt however, is conveying almost an opposite message. She is saying that no matter what you do, say, or for that matter what other people say, you can never lose who you are or where you came from or put in other words you can never lose your past. All in all I feel that the poems both convey the message that they set out to and did it with real passion but with two completely different massaged and two completely different styles, it really shows two completely different attitudes to dealing with a multi racial life.