The Full Text of “Checking Out Me History”
The Full Text of “Checking Out Me History”
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“Checking Out Me History” Introduction
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"Checking Out Me History" was written by the British Guyanese poet John Agard and first published in 2005, in the collection Half-Caste. The poem focuses on the holes in the British colonial education system—particularly that system's omission of important figures from African, Caribbean, and indigenous history. In other words, the poem discusses how colonized people were forced to learned about British history—which had little to do with their actual lives—at the expense of their own history. Not only does the poem call attention to the oppressive nature of colonial education, but it also praises important figures who were left out—figures such as Touissaint L'Ouverture, the leader of the Haitian revolution. The poem suggests the colonial syllabus deliberately blinded colonized people to their own histories, and argues that only by re-learning their history can these people can fully understand and embrace their identities.
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“Checking Out Me History” Summary
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The speaker repeatedly says how British colonizers taught students only what they—that is, the British—wanted those students to know.
The British education system essentially hid colonized people's history from them, in effect blinding people like the speaker to their true identities.
British educators taught colonized students about the Battle of Hastings, which was fought in 1066, and other irrelevant stuff like that. They taught students about Dick Whittington, who, according to British folklore, rose from poverty with the money he made from selling his cat to a rat-infested country. But the British educators never bothered to teach students about Toussaint L’ Ouverture.
Toussaint was a visionary man who rose up from slavery. He beat back the battalions of the French Emperor Napoleon, which is how Haiti gained independence from the French and became the first black democracy in the Americas. Toussaint was a metaphorical thorn in France's side, and the powerful leader of the Haitian Revolution.
The speaker says more about was taught by the British, this time alluding to even more trivial things like the man who invented the balloon and popular English nursery rhymes. But the British never told the speaker about Nanny de Maroon.
Nanny was a visionary woman known for escaping slavery and founding her own town for other escaped slaves in the mountains of Jamaica. Nanny was a brave, ferocious fighter. Her actions provided a source of hope for other enslaved peoples, like a stream that flowed into a deeper river of freedom.
The British taught the speaker about Horatio Nelson, who was regarded as one of the greatest sea warriors in British history, and the Battle of Waterloo, which took place in Belgium in 1815 and marked the end of the Napoleonic wars and victory for the British. But the British never taught the speaker about Shaka de great Zulu, one of the most important monarchs from the Zulu Kingdom in Africa. The British taught the speaker about how Cristopher Columbus came to America in 1492, but they never mentioned what became of the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean who were mostly killed and displaced after Columbus's arrival.
The British taught the speaker about Florence Nightingale, an English social reformer who gained fame as a nurse during the Crimean War. They even taught the speaker about mythological figures like Robin Hood and ole King Cole. But the British never taught the speaker about Mary Seacole.
Mary Seacole was from Jamaica and had to travel on her own a great distance to the site of the Crimean War. When she first volunteered to go to the war she was denied by the British War Office. However, the undeterred Mary Seacole still traveled independently to cold, snowy Russia, where she helped heal the wounded troops and gave hope—like a bright sunrise—to sick and dying men.
The speaker repeats the opening line of the poem, lamenting how the British only taught colonized students what they wanted to teach them. Now, however, the speaker is learning the history of the speaker's own people, and by doing so the speaker is creating an identity.
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“Checking Out Me History” Themes
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Colonialism, History, and Identity
The speaker of “Checking Out Me History,” implied to be a person living under British colonial rule, tells readers what students learned under the British education system and what they didn’t—mainly, anything about African and indigenous history. Throughout the poem, the speaker juxtaposes the sometimes frivolous British and Euro-centric history taught in colonial schools with powerful African, indigenous, and Caribbean figures such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nanny de Maroon, and Mary Seacole.
These people, the poem argues, had been ignored or purposely omitted from colonial education, as the British instead chose to glorify their own historical figures (like Christopher Columbus and Florence Nightingale) and to even teach fictional tales about things like “how Robin Hood used to camp.” The speaker argues that this was a deliberate form of oppression on the part of the British, in that prevented colonized people from learning about their own pasts—something, the poem argues, that is essential when establishing an identity.
The poem begins with the speaker listing some of the things taught in colonial schools, such as “bout 1066” and “bout Dick Whittington and he cat.” The first line is reference to the Battle of Hastings, fought in 1066 between the Norman-French army and the English. The second line references English folklore about a man named Richard Whittington, who, legend has it, became rose from poverty with the money he made from selling his cat to a rat-infested country.
These are the sort of things that students in British Guyana (where the poet himself was born) would be taught in their colonial schools—that is, they are prominent moments in British history but, the poem implies, they aren’t that relevant to these Guyanese students. In fact, it “blinds them” to their own identity because it’s being taught at the expense of more relevant history.
To that end, the next line reveals what is not being taught. For example, although the speaker learned the (most likely) made-up tale of Dick Whittington, the speaker did not learn about Toussaint L’Ouverture, the most important figure of the Haitian revolution. Haiti was the first colony to overthrow a European colonial power, abolish slavery, and found a black democracy in the Americas. As such, it's likely that the British and other colonial powers omitted L'Ouverture from their teachings out of fear that other oppressed peoples might learn from his example—and rise up against their colonial masters. Denying colonized peoples access to their history, the poem implies, is thus a calculated form of oppression. Doing so prevents colonial subjects from finding inspiration in their own pasts and from asserting an identity separate from that of their colonizers.
By refusing to teach people like the speaker about relevant historical figures and events, British educators denied colonized students a part of their identity. And in order to reclaim that identity, the speaker argues that the colonized peoples must reclaim their history. According to the speaker, the colonial education cannot be trusted because it does not have the interest of colonized peoples in mind; as the speaker says, the British only “tell me wha dem want to tell me.” And the key to fighting back, the poem argues, is for colonized people to learn "check out" their own history.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-53
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Checking Out Me History”
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Lines 1-3
Dem tell me ...
... to tell meThe speaker opens by establishing a narrative voice, as well as presenting the main problem of the poem. There are no specifics yet—it's not clear who "dem" refers to or who the speaker is—but the gist of these lines is still clear: some group of people is telling the speaker only what that group wants the speaker to know. In other words, the poem implies that something is missing from what the speaker is hearing, that the speaker is not getting the whole story.
The poem also notably opens with repetition: the first line ("Dem tell me") is repeated twice in a row, an instance of epizeuxis (which will reappear later in the poem as anaphora). This immediate repetition adds a sense of emphasis to the speaker's assertion—that these people are deliberately and adamantly controlling what the speaker learns. This repetition also suggests the speaker's sense of annoyance at only being taught only what the speaker's educators wish to teach.
When considered within the broader context of the poem, "dem" almost certainly refers to colonial powers of some sort. The poet, John Agard, grew up in Guyana when it was still a British colony, and the poem's dialect (its use of words like "dem" in place of "them," "wha" for "what," etc.) is Caribbean creole. As such, it's reasonable to assume that this "dem" refers to the British colonizers and that the speaker is someone who, like the poet himself, has grown up in the West Indies. The poem's later reference to both British and West Indian history supports this. For now, though, things remain vague.
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Lines 4-5
Bandage up me ...
... me own identity -
Lines 6-9
Dem tell me ...
... me bout dat -
Lines 10-21
Toussaint ...
... de Haitian Revolution -
Lines 22-25
Dem tell me ...
... Nanny de Maroon -
Lines 26-31
Nanny ...
... To freedom river -
Lines 32-35
Dem tell me ...
... de Arawaks too -
Lines 36-39
Dem tell me ...
... bout Mary Seacole -
Lines 40-45
From Jamaica ...
... the Russian snow -
Lines 46-49
A healing star ...
... To the dying -
Lines 50-53
Dem tell me ...
... out me identity
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“Checking Out Me History” Symbols
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Light and Vision
The important Caribbean figures that the speaker chooses to talk about are all described in figurative language focused on light and vision. Light, of course, is necessary for sight, so the two symbols are deeply intertwined in the poem. When colonized individuals like the speaker study these figures, that knowledge can help those colonized individuals better understand who they themselves are and begin to shape their own identities. Light and vision thus represent hope, inspiration, and the possibility of understanding oneself.
For example, in stanza 4 Toussaint L’Ouverture is called "a slave / With vision." In other words, he was a visionary who foresaw a better life for his fellow Haitians and rose up to lead the Haitian Revolution in the late 18th century. At the end of the stanza, he is compared to a "beacon"—that is, a fire or light set up as a sort of signal. L’Ouverture is a man who became a source of hope and inspiration for his contemporaries to rise up against slavery, and who also functions as modern day inspiration for people suffering under an oppressive rule.
In stanza 6, Nanny de Maroon is also painted as a visionary, a woman who can "see-far." This vision allows her to not only escape up from slavery but also to help others do the same; her vision is again tied to hope (mentioned here by the "Hopeful stream" of line 30).
And finally, in stanza 9, Mary Seacole is called a "healing star" and a "yellow sunrise." She is another inspirational figure directly linked to light, and also to the possibility inherent in the dawning of a new day. Comparing Seacole to a "star" and "sunrise" further highlights her similarity to Florence Nightingale "and she lamp"; this is an allusion to the fact that Nightingale often tended to the wounded at night, and was thus referred to as "the lady with the lamp." Tying the symbol of light to Seacole underscores that she, too, deserves a place in history for the sense of healing and hope she imparted to soldiers.
For the speaker, these figures are all "beacons" of light shining through the darkness of history, providing hope and illuminating the way for modern colonized peoples to break free from their oppression. The speaker also argues that the knowledge of these figures and their deeds can help colonized people begin to construct their own identities. In this way, the figures presented in stanzas 4, 6, and 9 are like lights illuminating the forgotten or hidden histories of colonized peoples themselves.
To that end, the opposite of not learning one's history in this poem is connected directly to darkness and blindness. This is why the speaker says the British "Bandage up me eye with me own history / Blind me to me own identity." The British are denying the vision and light the speaker needs to understand who the speaker is.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 4-5: “Bandage up me eye with me own history / Blind me to me own identity”
- Line 10: “Toussaint”
- Lines 11-12: “A slave / With vision”
- Lines 20-21: “Toussaint de beacon / Of de Haitian Revolution”
- Line 27: “See-far woman”
- Line 36: “Florence Nightingale and she lamp”
- Lines 46-49: “A healing star / Among the wounded / A yellow sunrise / To the dying”
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“Checking Out Me History” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Repetition
The speaker uses repetition throughout. The first two lines are in fact simply a repetition of the phrase "Dem tell me," an example of epizeuxis. This same phrase then is repeated as anaphora (with some slight variations) at the start of various lines throughout the entire poem. This accomplishes a few things. Most obviously, this implies the speaker's frustration with the British, and never lets the reader forget that the British colonizers are in control of the speaker's formal education. The repetition of the phrase "Dem tell me" almost makes the reader feel as if they are in school too, listening to a British teacher repeat things over and over again.
This notion of meaningless repetition is underscored by the circularity of the following phrase, created by its use of diacope:
Dem tell me
Wha dem want to tell meThe British are not really teaching the speaker anything, and the speaker is never given a chance to ask questions. Also note that the poem's first and final stanzas are almost exactly the same—except, of course, for the fact that the speaker follows the "Dem tell me" in the final stanza with a powerful declaration: "But now I checking out me own history / I carving out me identity." This change after so much repetition underscores the speaker's newfound defiance.
There's a different form of repetition in the poem too, which is tied to the names of the figures from Caribbean history whom the speaker mentions. "Toussaint" is named four times in the poem, and "Nanny de Maroon" twice. This underscores the importance of these figures to the speaker. Note how Toussaint's name is even turned into anaphora:
Toussaint de thorn
To de French
Toussaint de beacon
Of de Haitian RevolutionThis figure is at once a pain the side of the French and a source of hope and inspiration to Haitian slaves and other oppressed peoples. The duality created by this use of anaphora highlights the subjective nature of historical narratives: were the French teaching the speaker's history class, they probably would not paint a very rosy picture of Toussaint L’Ouverture despite the fact that he was a hero to so many. This repetition is thus another subtle jab at the biased and blinding nature of colonial education.
Where repetition appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “Dem tell me / Dem tell me”
- Line 3: “Wha dem want to tell me”
- Line 6: “Dem tell me bout”
- Line 7: “Dem tell me bout ”
- Line 8: “Toussaint L’Ouverture”
- Line 10: “Toussaint”
- Line 18: “Toussaint de thorn”
- Line 20: “Toussaint de beacon”
- Line 22: “Dem tell me bout de”
- Line 24: “Dem tell me bout de”
- Line 25: “But dem never tell me,” “Nanny de Maroon”
- Line 26: “Nanny”
- Line 32: “Dem tell me bout ”
- Line 33: “But dem never tell me”
- Line 34: “Dem tell me bout ”
- Line 36: “Dem tell me bout”
- Line 38: “Dem tell me bout ”
- Line 39: “But dem never tell me”
- Line 50: “Dem tell me”
- Line 51: “Dem tell me ,” “wha dem want to tell me”
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Colloquialism
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Enjambment
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Metaphor
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Consonance
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Assonance
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Juxtaposition
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Allusion
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"Checking Out Me History" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Dem
- Wha
- 1066
- Dat
- Dick Whittington and he cat
- Toussainnt L'Ouverture
- Lick back
- Napoleon
- First Black Republic
- Beacon
- Man who discover de balloon
- Nanny de Maroon
- See-far woman
- Fire-woman struggle
- Lord Nelson
- Waterloo
- Shaka de great Zulu
- Columbus and 1492
- Caribs and de Arawaks
- Florence Nightingale
- Robin Hood
- King Cole
- Mary Seacole
- Crimean War
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(Location in poem: Line 1: “Dem ”; Line 2: “Dem”; Line 3: “dem”; Line 6: “Dem”; Line 7: “Dem”; Line 9: “dem”; Line 22: “Dem”; Line 24: “Dem”; Line 25: “dem”; Line 32: “Dem”; Line 33: “dem”; Line 34: “Dem”; Line 36: “Dem”; Line 38: “Dem”; Line 39: “dem”; Line 50: “Dem”; Line 51: “Dem,” “dem”)
Them. The spelling of the word reflects the speaker's dialect.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Checking Out Me History”
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Form
The poem is written in free verse, with the occasional use of rhyming quatrains (four-line stanzas). The poem contains 10 stanzas and a total of 53 lines. These stanzas vary greatly in length—some as short as 2 lines, others as long as 12.
There is a pattern to this seeming chaos. The speaker uses long, free verse stanzas to praise characters from African and Caribbean history (such as Toussaint L’Ouverture, Nanny de Maroon, and Mary Seacole). These stanzas are marked by short lines with frequent enjambment and internal rhyme. When talking about Caribbean history—that is, the speaker's own history—the speaker thus noticeably breaks with established European forms.
The speaker then turns to the more traditional rhyming quatrains to describe what was taught in the British education system. Compared to the free verse stanzas, these feel simple and childish. In this way, even the form of the poem, or the play between its two forms, serves to question and undermine British colonialism.
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Meter
The poem has no formal meter; it's written in free verse. This keeps the tone conversational, and—as with the poem's overall form—represents a break with European poetic traditions that relied heavily on meter. Writing without meter is a way to establish the speaker's unique voice and to subtly rebel against colonialism, given that traditional, metered poetry is likely what the speaker would have been taught within the British colonial education system.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem often uses rhyme, but there is no overarching rhyme scheme given that the stanzas are often structured very differently from one another. There's a clear contrast, however, between the end rhymed quatrains that describe colonial teachings, and the free-flowing, unpredictable rhymes found in the stanzas describing figures from Caribbean history.
The quatrains rely on perfect rhymes, many of which are based on one-syllable words. Take the eighth stanza:
Dem tell me bout Florence Nightingale and she lamp
And how Robin Hood used to camp
Dem tell me bout ole King Cole was a merry ole soul
But dem never tell me bout Mary SeacoleOther quatrains are even simpler, relying on a single rhyme sound (i.e., "spoon," "balloon," "moon," Maroon"). This makes all the quatrains sound straightforward, sing-songy; they come across like nursery rhymes.
The stanzas focused on Caribbean figures are much more complicated—relying on a mixture of full, slant, and internal rhymes to create a rich, unpredictable tapestry of sound. Look at the stanza focused on Toussaint L’Ouverture. There are perfect rhymes between "back"/"Black" and "born"/"thorn," as well as slant rhymes between "vision," "Napoleon," "Battalion," "beacon," and "Revolution."
The stanzas about Nanny de Maroon and Mary Seacole feature similarly complex rhyme schemes. Take the stanza focused on Seacole. There's slant rhyme between "far," "War," and "star," broken up by three perfect rhymes between "go," "no," and "snow." Add consonance and assonance, and these all become extremely musical stanzas that defy the established, predictable rhythms of traditional poetry—allowing the speaker to establish a distinct voice, separate from that of the British colonizers.
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“Checking Out Me History” Speaker
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The speaker of the poem is likely a young person living in a British colony in the Caribbean, or a person of that colonial background who is living in England. The speaker uses a strong dialect typical of the region, and repeatedly implies that figures from Caribbean and African history are part of the speaker's own history. As such, the speaker is likely someone of African or indigenous heritage currently living under British colonial rule.
The poet, John Agard, grew up in British Guyana, and the poem is likely based on his own experiences. That said, the speaker isn't given an age nor gender, and isn't necessarily meant to be taken as Agard himself; rather, the speaker seeks to give voice to the many young people who have grown up under colonial rule, and who have been denied access to their own histories.
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“Checking Out Me History” Setting
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The poem takes place in a British colony in the Caribbean. The speaker uses dialect from the region and repeatedly references important figures from the region's history—figures the speaker resents not being taught about in school. Since the references to what was being taught in school all relate to British history, it's fair to assume the speaker lives in a country that has been specifically colonized by the English. And since the poet, John Agard, is from British Guyana, it's likely this poem is set in British Guyana during the early to mid 19th century, before Guyana gained its independence from Britain in 1966.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Checking Out Me History”
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Literary Context
John Agard was born in 1949 in British Guyana (currently Guyana). He grew up in the capital of Georgetown, and when he was young, he fostered his love of language by listening to cricket commentary on the radio.
Agard’s work often touches upon themes of colonialism, identity, and Caribbean culture. Similar themes can be found throughout Caribbean poetry, which is often deeply tied to the history of the region—a history marked by brutal colonialism and enslavement. This poetry also often focuses on themes related to exile, the natural landscape, and tradition. Other famous Caribbean poets include Derek Walcott, Kamau Brathwaite, and Linton Kwesi Johnson.
In 1998, Agard won the Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry. He has also been awarded Casa de las Americas Prize (1982), the Cholmondeley Award (2004), the CLPE Poetry Award (2009), and the Queen’s Medal for Poetry (2012). Besides numerous poetry collections, Agard has published many children’s books as well.
Historical Context
Agard grew up in British Guyana at a time when the country was under British colonial rule. The colony, which changed hands between the French and English in the early 19th century, had been a primary producer of sugarcane until the late 1800s, when the decline in sugar cane prices shifted focus towards farming, forestry, and mining. Slavery was brutally upheld throughout the Caribbean through the mid-19th century as well—something referenced in the poem's allusion to Toussaint L’Ouverture. L’Ouverture was a former enslaved person who became a leader of the Haitian Revolution, which established Haiti as a free, sovereign state in 1804.
Although "Checking Out Me History" was not published until 2005, the themes of the poem (which are found throughout Agard’s work) focus on one of the main issues of the century: colonialism and colonized people’s fight for independence. The latter half of the 20th century, when Agard was coming of age, saw many colonized countries gain that independence, including Jamaica (1962), Antigua and Barbuda (1981), Barbados (1966), Belize (1981), and, of course, Guyana itself in (1966). As an Afro-Caribbean poet growing up in a time when many nations were fighting for independence, Agard's work naturally took on the themes of colonialism, independence and freedom, and Afro-Caribbean identity.
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More “Checking Out Me History” Resources
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External Resources
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Further Analysis of Agard's Work — The author Daljit Nagra analyzes "Checking Out Me History" as well as other poems by Agard.
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More by John Agard — A critical perspective, full biography, and bibliography of Agard from the British Council.
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The Poem in Performance — Another reading of "Checking Out Me History," this time in a live setting.
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to the poem read by Agard himself.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by John Agard
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