Content:

The poem „Half-Caste“ written by John Agard, who was born in Guyana in
1949 of a white mother and a black father has five stanzas with a greatly
variating number of lines.
There is no formal rhyme-scheme or metre, but the poem contains
rhymes for example „wha you mean - mix red and green“or „glow-
shadow-tomorrow.“
It develops a simple idea which is found in a familliar, but outdated
phrase.
Half-caste as a term for mixed race is now rare but the term comes from
India, where people were divided into groups (castes) which are not
allowed to mix, and where the lowest caste is considered untouchable.
The poem opens apologetically and the first stanza including his three
lines can be seen as a joke. The speaker stands on one leg because he is
only half made or just a half person.
Agard ridicules the notion of half-caste by applying it to art and, notably,
the British weather in the second stanza.
Especially applying it to Tchaikovsky’s symphony shows how important
the mix of black and white keys therefore a half-cast symphony is. A
symphony with only white keys or black keys isn’t a real one.
John Agard reprises his earlier joke on a mixed race person being half
formed from line 31 to line 50. The “half-caste” uses only half of ear and
eye, and offers half a hand to shake, leading to the absurdities of
dreaming half a dream and casting half a shadow.
Once again the poet uses humour and absurdity to emphasise his view of
the term.
Though the poem is light-hearted in tone, the argument of the last six
lines is very sirious they can be seen as a punchline.
Agard invites his hearer to „come back tomorrow“ and use the whole of
eye, ear and mind when he tells the other part oft he story.
So the universal application is giving people our full attention and thinking
by yourself to form your own opinions.

Form:
The form of the poem is related to ist subject, as Agard uses a mixture of
English dialects. Standard English and Caribbean are mixed but it is
nevertheless one whole language.
The number of stanzas in the poem is five.
This isn’t a fortune. Five is an unequal number and it cannot be divided by
two. And thats the main idea of the poem,there is just a whole person not
a half.
A formal device which Agard favours is repetition: „Explain yuself, wha yu
mean“, for example. And is used to reinforce his idea.
The poem is colloquil, written as if spoken to someone with
imperatives(commands) like „Explain yuself“ and questions like „wha yu
mean“
The punctuation is non-standard because Agard is using no comma, nor
full stop.
In combination by not using capital letters in many places where one
normally would use them Agard is making the poem look like one whole
poem without any divding.
The form complements the poem and stresses the message.