Poetry · GCSE English Literature
Checking Out Me History
GCSE Agard revision: colonised schooling, phonetic resistance, Toussaint and Nanny as recovered light, and how identity is carved against “dem tell me.”
Dem bandage up his eye with his own history. The poem rips the bandage off and carves a different identity in a different English.
The important bits
What you need to know
- 1
The refrain “Dem tell me” is the colonising syllabus: nursery-rhyme Britain (Dick Whittington, Lord Nelson, Florence Nightingale) delivered as if it were the whole past.
- 2
Phonetic spelling and Caribbean Creole are not “wrong English.” They are a method of resistance — the voice the classroom tried to overwrite. Write that sentence in the exam; it scores.
- 3
Italicised passages lift Toussaint L’Ouverture, Nanny of the Maroons, Mary Seacole into a different typeface, like a hidden textbook breaking through. Structure is the argument.
- 4
Toussaint is “a thorn” and “a beacon”: pain to the French empire, light to Haiti. Agard’s heroes are not polite additions; they change what “beacon” is allowed to mean.
- 5
Nanny “see-far woman” and the “healing star” of Seacole rewrite who gets vision and care. Nightingale is not erased so much as dethroned as the only lamp.
- 6
The ending turns from listening to making: “I carving out me identity.” Identity is active, physical, almost sculptural — compare Dharker’s tissue and Shelley’s stone.
- 7
Blindness imagery (“bandage up me eye”) makes education a wound. Power here is the curriculum. That is why the poem belongs beside London (who maps the city) and Tissue (whose writing lasts).
- 8
Tone moves from accusation to celebration. A one-mood essay misses the lift when the italic histories arrive. Track that shift as you would a volta.
Quotations worth analysing
Short evidence. Real method.
“Dem tell me / Dem tell me / Wha dem want to tell me”
Repetition mimics a drill. “Want” exposes selection: history is a desire of the tellers, not a neutral list. The off-stage “dem” is institutional power without a face.
“Bandage up me eye with me own history / Blind me to me own identity”
The bandage is made of history itself — a cruel paradox. Schooling uses the past as a medical gag. Identity is what you could see if the bandage came off.
“but now I checking out me own history / I carving out me identity”
“Checking out” is study and also leaving the official shop. “Carving” is slow, resistant work, the opposite of being told. The verbs hand power back to the speaker.
Go deeper
Why the nursery-rhyme Britain matters
Agard does not only add Black heroes to a list. He shows how British childhood verse — de old Lord Nelson, de cow who jump over de moon, Dick Whittington — can become a charm that makes empire feel like common sense. The sing-song is the method. When Toussaint arrives in italics, the font itself refuses the nursery. In comparison with London, Blake hears “mind-forged manacles”; Agard shows the manacles being taught as a rhyme. In comparison with My Last Duchess, both poems care about who controls the story of a person, but Browning’s Duke silences one woman while Agard’s “dem” silences a whole lineage. Do not write “slavery was bad” as a free-floating fact. Attach context to the bandage and the missing names.
Go deeper
Phonetics on the page are analysis, not a translation task
You do not need to “correct” the spelling in your essay. Quote it as Agard wrote it and say what the choice does: it makes the speaking voice impossible to standardise, which is the political point. AQA will not reward you for sneering at Creole or for ignoring it. If you discuss language as power, this is the flagship poem of the cluster. Pair with Tissue on who writes the record, or with The Émigrée on a self that official documents will not honour. Judgement: Agard is angrier and funnier; Rumens is more elegiac. Both refuse the host culture’s full claim on the speaker.
Go deeper
Toussaint, Nanny, Seacole — use them, do not list them
Name one or two figures with a method attached. Toussaint as thorn and beacon gives you metaphor and historical resistance in a breath. Nanny as see-far woman gives you vision against the bandage. Seacole as healing star lets you challenge the Nightingale monopoly without a rant. Three names in a row with no quotation is a Wikipedia paragraph. The italics are your structural point: recovered history looks different on the page. Quote a short italic phrase, then return to the refrain so the contrast of voices is visible. End on “carving” so the essay finishes in the speaker’s agency, which is where Agard finishes.
See the idea in action
Stem: identity. Thesis: Both Checking Out Me History and The Émigrée present identity as something official power tries to overwrite, but Agard fights a British syllabus with Caribbean heroes and Creole, while Rumens guards a sunlight city that a passport cannot restore. Methods: refrain and italics versus paperweight and personification. Judgement: Agard’s speaker carves; Rumens’s speaker receives her city in a white plane. One is excavation, the other is fidelity.
Exam technique
Turn knowledge into marks
Quote the Creole accurately. Rewriting it into Standard English in your quotation marks quietly undoes the poem’s method.
Common mistakes
Do not give these marks away
- 01
Listing every historical figure without analysing bandage, beacon, or carving.
- 02
Calling the language “slang” or “incorrect” — that is the colonising view the poem is attacking.
- 03
Writing a history of empire with no close reference to Agard’s structure or sound.
What is the main effect of Agard’s phonetic spelling in Checking Out Me History?
AIt shows he could not spell Standard English
BIt makes the Caribbean voice itself a form of resistance to a colonising education
CIt is only there to be humorous and has no serious meaning
DIt copies Browning’s dramatic monologue exactly
Show the answer
It makes the Caribbean voice itself a form of resistance to a colonising education. The voice on the page refuses to be standardised. That is identity as method, not only as topic.
Quick questions
If this is the bit you searched
Who is “dem”?
The unnamed authorities of a British-centred education — teachers, textbooks, a culture that selected which past to tell. Leaving them faceless is part of the power analysis.
Do I have to know all the historical figures?
Know Toussaint, and one of Nanny or Seacole, with a metaphor attached. Coverage of every name is less important than bandage versus carving.
Can I pair this with London?
Yes: both ask who maps a people. Blake’s chartered streets; Agard’s chartered syllabus. Difference: Blake hears a city of cries; Agard rebuilds a hidden history in another rhythm.
Is the poem only angry?
The refrain is accusatory; the italic lives are celebratory; the ending is determined. Track the mix or you flatten Agard into a mood.