Checking Out Me History: taught the nursery rhymes, he had to find his own history alone

Was Nanny of the Maroons a real person, or a legend? The name sounds like a story, so it is tempting to guess legend. She was real. In the seventeen hundreds she led communities of people in Jamaica who had escaped slavery, and today she is Jamaica's only National Heroine, with her portrait on its five-hundred-dollar note. John Agard's speaker was taught nursery rhymes and English dates at school. Nobody taught him about Nanny. He had to go and find her himself. How the poem shows that finding, on the page itself, is the real lesson here.

Checking Out Me History is still in copyright, so this video quotes short pieces of it; have the anthology open if you can. It begins with a chant: "Dem tell me Dem tell me Wha dem want to tell me". Dem means them, the people in charge of his schooling. Starting line after line with the same words is called anaphora, and it sounds like being talked at. The speaker has no verb of his own yet; only they do the telling. Near the start he says what that schooling did to him: "Bandage up me eye with me own history." "Blind me to me own identity.". A bandage is meant to heal, and here it covers his eyes. Then comes the list of what he was told. "Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat", Dick Whittington and his cat, Florence Nightingale, Columbus and Lord Nelson. And between those lists come the people he was not told about. "Toussaint L'Ouverture" led the revolt that made Haiti free. Nanny of the Maroons led people who had escaped slavery. Mary Seacole nursed soldiers in the same war as Florence Nightingale. A cat on the same list as ten sixty-six: what does that mix say about his schooling? That English stories, true or made up, were all treated as the same kind of thing. A cat and a conquest share one list, while the heroes he had to find for himself never reached any list at all. Now listen to how those found people arrive. Each one comes in on the word but, straight after a line of what he was told: "But dem never tell me bout Nanny de Maroon". The word never turns the list into a charge. He did not forget her; nobody ever told him. Agard makes one pairing through rhyme. "Dem tell me bout ole King Cole was a merry ole soul" sets up "But dem never tell me bout Mary Seacole". A nursery-rhyme king and a real nurse share one sound, and only the made-up one reached his schooling.

Now look at the page, not only the words, because the poem is printed in two different ways. The parts about what he was told sit in blocked verses, heavy and regular. The parts about Toussaint, Nanny and Mary Seacole are printed in italics, in short, flowing lines, like a different voice. Why print the history he found in a different style from the history he was told?

Because the layout is the argument. One style holds the history he was taught, and another holds the history he found. The poem does not just describe being silenced: it shows the silencing, then lets the second voice take over.

The italic voice also pictures its heroes differently. Agard calls Nanny a "See-far woman". The speaker's eye was bandaged by his schooling, so the hero he finds is the one who can see a long way. Mary Seacole is "A healing star". Healing is the job the bandage failed to do. And in the history he was told, Florence Nightingale comes with her lamp; Seacole is given a star, which outshines any lamp. Then there is the spelling: me own, dem, dat. Here are three ways to describe it. The first: a mistake. The second: a joke. The third: a deliberate choice. Which of those three describes the spelling best? That last one. Agard writes in Caribbean Creole, a language that grew out of English and African languages, which is exactly the voice the schoolroom never used. So treat every spelling like any other word choice, the way you would treat Owen choosing a verb. It has an effect: the poem claims its own voice while it claims its own history. And the poem ends with the verbs changing hands: "But now I checking out me own history." "I carving out me identity.". He stops being told and starts doing, and carving is slow, physical work. One examiner's report puts it simply: Checking Out Me History worked very well and there was some real engagement here with the speaker's thoughts about power and control. Notice what it praises: the speaker's thinking, not the history lesson. So the habit is one clause per historical figure, and the rest of the sentence on what the speaker does with them.

Five short pieces of the poem do the work in an answer, each with its own job. "Dem tell me ... Wha dem want to tell me": the repetition is the sound of being talked at, and he has no verb of his own. "Dem tell me bout 1066 and all dat": the dates he was given are English ones, delivered as a list with no people in it. "Toussaint L'Ouverture" and the others arrive in a different form on the page, because the layout is the argument. "Bandage up me eye with me own history": the thing that should have healed him is what blinds him. And "I carving out me identity": the verbs change hands, and carving is slow, hard work. In the cluster, Checking Out Me History answers power and identity and belonging, and the history an empire leaves behind lets it reach what conflict leaves behind as well.

Four quick ones to test what stuck, a single word missing in each. Dem tell me bout which year, and all dat? It was ten sixty-six, an English year, given to him with no people in it. Now the bandage: bandage up me eye with me own what? History. His own history used as the bandage that blinds him. Try the ending: I carving out me what? Identity. Carving out me identity, slowly, by hand. One more: kings in the chapter, Seacole in a side box. Which part of the poem is that? The two layouts. The main chapter is the blocked history he was told, and the side box is the italic history pushed to the margin, the one he had to find. Nanny of the Maroons is on Jamaica's money. Agard's speaker still had to find her on his own, and the poem prints that finding in a voice of its own.

Explain why the poem looks different in two places, and it's sorted: one like, and it's off your list for good. Feeling shaky, save it and trace the two layouts with a finger, anthology open, until the pattern is obvious.

Next in the chapter: Storm on the Island: prepared for everything, frightened of nothing. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly E L four oh, ten.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.