How Poets Reveal their Ideas and Feelings about Other Cultures

Culture. What is culture? People think of culture in different ways but it is the culture inside them which makes them unique. Culture is what gives a person their very own identity. This diversity is what makes everybody different. There are two sides to culture. On one side it unites and unifies people but on the other it separates and deviates people. Many poets have explored these issues. Poets like John Agard in Half-Caste explore on how cultured separated him from other children whilst in his child hood. Other poets like Tom Leonard in Unrelated Incidents talk about how he was mistreated due to his culture. Other Poets explore how culture unites people into celebration and how culture is extremely enjoyable.

In Half caste John Agard makes a mockery of the term ”half caste” .In the poem he starts of in the first stanza by saying he is half caste which makes the reader feel that he is proud to be half caste. This poem shows us how ridiculous it is to judge people on their culture by comparing himself to weather, music and art. John Agard says” when yu say half caste yu mean when the light an shadow mix in de sky is a half caste weather well in dat case England weather nearly always half caste” he expresses his feelings and his message is shouldn’t we neglect English weather because it has a mix of light and shadow also he uses famous greats like Picasso and Tchaikovsky and saying should we neglect their work because Picasso mixed two colours and Tchaikovsky used a black and white mix of keys. This is effective as it make the reader feel what makes him different then these pieces of brilliance as he is similar with a mix of black and white .He believes that just because some one is half caste they are not half a person...

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...ow they were judged before they put their point across on how they were judged. John Agard was judged on his race and Tom Leonard was judged on his accent which make them feel incomplete or judged against. Another way they link is that they both wrote in second person which adds more effect on the poem as it adds questions on the poets values and also involves the reader.

Overall people have different views on culture for example John Agard Tom Leonard but its not the way you feel on culture it is the way the expressing this felling for example Tom Leonard expresses his feelings about his accent by making a poem which breaks standard English rules and John Agard uses reverse psychology to put is point across. This is why culture gives you an identity, why it makes you unique because it not about what you think of culture it is how you express them feelings.