Checking Out Me History by John Agard: Poem Analysis for GCSE

Checking Out Me History by John Agard is about a speaker who was taught British history and nursery-rhyme figures at school while the history of his own Caribbean heritage was left out. Written by a poet born in Guyana who later moved to Britain, the poem sets a Caribbean Creole voice, spelled phonetically and largely free of standard punctuation, against the version of history his schooling gave him. It forms part of the AQA Power and Conflict cluster studied for GCSE English Literature.

The poem sits in the anthology Poems Past and Present, where it is often compared with London for its treatment of institutions that shape thought, and with The Emigree and Tissue on the theme of identity. In the exam, Checking Out Me History might be printed on the paper in Section B, with a student comparing it from memory with one other poem from the same cluster, so its short, memorable phrases are worth learning by heart.

What is Checking Out Me History about?

In plain terms, the poem is about a speaker frustrated that his schooling taught him British history, dates such as 1066 and nursery-rhyme characters while ignoring the Black historical figures who shaped his own heritage. He sets these two versions of history side by side, moving from a list of what he was taught to a list of the people his education missed, among them Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nanny of the Maroons and Mary Seacole. By the end, he turns from complaining about this gap to actively filling it himself, researching and claiming a history that was never given to him in the classroom.

Who is John Agard and why does the context matter for AO3?

John Agard is a poet born in Guyana who later moved to Britain, and this movement from a Caribbean colony to the imperial centre underlies the contrast the poem draws between two versions of history. AO3 covers the relationships between texts and their contexts, so linking the speaker's complaint about a whitewashed education to Agard's own background gives a contextual argument beyond biography alone.

The poem's Creole spelling, heard throughout in the speaker's recurring complaint, signals that a reclaimed history is being told in his own voice, spelled as it sounds and refusing the correction into standard English that a British classroom would expect, so the language itself becomes part of the poem's argument about whose version of history gets to be standard.

What do the key quotations in Checking Out Me History mean?

The poem's key quotations move from the speaker's complaint about what he is taught, through the Black historical figures presented in italic stanzas, to an act of reclaiming his own identity at the end. Learning them in this order makes it easier to structure a paragraph that tracks the poem's shift from being told to telling.

• "Dem tell me" - spoken by the speaker as he lists what his education gave him. The short, repeated phrase works like a chant, presenting his schooling as something imposed on him and framing everything that follows as somebody else's version of history.
• "Bandage up me eye with me own history" - the speaker's own account of what that schooling did to him. The metaphor of a bandage suggests an injury dressed with the wrong material, so his own history becomes the thing covering his sight instead of revealing him to himself.
• "a slave with vision" - part of the italic stanza praising Toussaint L'Ouverture, left out of the speaker's official lessons. Pairing servitude with foresight turns a word usually associated with powerlessness into a mark of leadership, presenting the revolution he led as planned and deliberate.
• "fire-woman struggle" - part of the italic stanza honouring Nanny of the Maroons, the leader of escaped slaves in Jamaica. The compound noun fuses her with elemental imagery, presenting resistance as a natural force, while the alliteration binding fire to struggle makes rebellion itself seem to burn.
• "a healing star among the wounded" - part of the italic stanza about Mary Seacole. Combining light and healing lifts this contribution above the battlefield it describes, presenting care as a form of heroism to set alongside the rebellions praised elsewhere in the same stanzas.
• "checking out me own history" and "I carving out me identity" - the ending of the poem, where the speaker moves from what he was told to what he is actively doing. Turning identity into something built by his own hand, this closing image answers the earlier bandaged sight with a picture of construction instead of injury, echoing the poem's title.

How do form and structure work in Checking Out Me History?

Checking Out Me History uses an irregular form and a clear structural pattern to dramatise the contrast between two versions of history. The poem alternates between stanzas describing the British history and nursery-rhyme figures the speaker was taught and italicised stanzas celebrating Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nanny of the Maroons and Mary Seacole, so the layout itself separates the official curriculum from the history being reclaimed.

Phonetic spelling and the near absence of standard punctuation mark the whole poem as written in Creole, refusing the correction into standard English that the speaker's schooling would impose. The recurring refrain breaks at the close into a different claim, so the structure itself enacts the shift from being told to telling.

What are the main themes in Checking Out Me History?

The poem explores identity, the power of education and those who control historical narrative, cultural heritage, and rebellion. Identity runs through the poem's movement from an education that obscures the speaker's sense of self to an ending in which he actively builds his own sense of who he is.

The poem's treatment of education asks who decides which figures count as history, since the speaker's curriculum includes 1066 and Dick Whittington while omitting Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nanny of the Maroons and Mary Seacole. Cultural heritage and rebellion sit together in the italic stanzas, where each figure is remembered for resisting or serving under conditions of slavery and colonial war, offering the speaker a heritage of resistance and service.

Which poems does Checking Out Me History compare well with?

Checking Out Me History compares well with London on the theme of institutions controlling minds, and with The Emigree and Tissue on the theme of identity. London, also studied in the Power and Conflict cluster, shares an interest in how institutions and authority shape what people are allowed to think and know, giving a comparison built around control of the mind alongside control by force.

The Emigree and Tissue both explore identity shaped by displacement, memory and fragile, changeable structures, so pairing either with this poem supports a question on how poets present identity or how people are affected by difficult experiences. All three poems sit within the same AQA anthology, so any of these pairings can be written about from memory in Section B.

How should you revise Checking Out Me History for the exam?

Revising Checking Out Me History for a closed-book exam means learning a small set of short, quotable phrases well enough to use them accurately under pressure. Both papers in AQA GCSE English Literature are closed book, so no copy of the text is allowed in the exam and quotations have to be recalled from memory. In Paper 2 Section B, the poem might be the one printed on the paper, with the second poem for comparison chosen by the student, so it is worth being ready to write about this poem either as the given poem or as the comparison brought in from memory.

Learning one short quotation for each stage of the poem, the refrain, the bandaged eye, one of the italic figures and the final act of reclaiming identity, gives enough material to support points on AO1, AO2 and AO3 without needing the whole text in memory. Practising a timed comparison paragraph against London, The Emigree or Tissue, turns that stored material into the kind of answer Section B rewards.

Related guides

• AQA Power and Conflict poems
• London poem analysis
• Tissue poem analysis
• AQA GCSE English Literature Paper 2 guide
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