How is the theme of identity explored in Checkin’ Out Me History and one other poem you have

studied?

Both Checkin’ Out Me History and The Emigree explore the idea that your identity is shaped by the
place you originate from. Agard and Rumens write in the first person, enabling the reader to
relate to the ‘identities’ they construct in a more personal and direct way.

In Checkin’ Out Me History, Agard reflects on his own experiences of a colonial British education
system in Guyana, where the teachers “blinded” him to his “own identity” through offering a
one-sided, Eurocentric version of historical events. The opening stanza immediately creates
a critical, accusatory tone through the harsh, plosive sounds of the verbs “Bandage up me
own eye/ Blind me to me own identity”. Agard seems to suggest that the singularly “white”
education he received was harmful to him, as the words “bandage” and “blind” connote
injury and pain. Furthermore, Agard’s lack of vision is later juxtaposed with the heroes he
idolises; Touissant is described as a “slave with vision”, Nanny as a “see-far woman”. This
emphasises the injustice of his metaphorical blindness, as a child he cannot be like these
visionary, inspirational heroes of his “own” cultural heritage, as he has been “blinded” to
their existence. The importance of understanding one’s cultural history is clearly underlined
by the comparison to sight here; Agard seems to suggest that his identity was damaged and
undeveloped by the colonial education system, inviting the British reader’s sympathy and
perhaps feelings of guilt or responsibility.

By contrast, the speaker in The Emigree seems to see her country of origin with absolute clarity, the
memory is described as “sunlight clear”. In fact, she is “branded” by it, which tells us that the
memory is a permanent, visible part of her identity. In the second stanza, she recalls the
“white streets” and “graceful slopes” glowing ever “clearer” as time passes. The positive
adjectives used (“sunlight”/ “white”/ “graceful”) are suggestive of her naïvely nostalgic view
of her homeland – she views it as a place of warmth, purity and perfection and refuses to
accept the “worst news of it”. Unlike Agard, who complains that the best of his culture was
kept hidden from him, the speaker in The Emigree faces a conflict in her identity as she
struggles to reconcile the reality of what has happened to her homeland – corruption and
war - (“sick with tyrants”/ “a city of walls”) with her own untainted memories of the place.

The reader may mistrust the speaker’s portrait of perfection, especially as the poem opens with the
line: “There once was a country….”; the fairy-tale phrasing “there once was…” detaches the
place from reality. Its mythical status is sustained as we never find out the name of the
country and the speaker maintains a child-like tone throughout. I feel invited to wonder
whether the streets were ever really “white” and “graceful”, or whether the speaker has
romanticised her homeland in her mind, in the same way that many of us may falsely look
back on our childhood as an innocent, purer time. Rumens raises challenging questions
about identity here. On one level, the speaker is desperately holding on to her memories of
her birth-place, like the child in the poem carrying the metaphorical “hollow doll”. Her
identity seems to have been forged in this place of light and warmth, raising the question:
why is she unable to find her identity in the place where she now lives? On another level, I
think that ideas about childhood and adulthood are being deliberately juxtaposed to
emphasise the disconnect many of us feel between our identity as a child - innocent, pure,
untouched – and our identity as adults – trapped, corrupt, conflicted.

Conversely, in Checkin’ Out Me History, the journey from childhood to adulthood is one of self-
discovery and empowerment. In the closing lines of the poem it says: “But now I
checkin’ out me own history/ I carving out me identity”. The verb “carving” suggests
that the process was tough, laborious, time-consuming, but ultimately worthwhile,
whilst the introduction of the pronoun “I” (not used throughout the rest of the
poem) echoes the image of self-discovery and re-birth. It is at this point that I
understood the purpose of the phonetic spelling Agard employs; writing in a way
that replicates his accent and manner of speaking allows him to express or “carve”
his cultural identity proudly. Throughout the poem, the conflict of identity is shown
as Agard alternates between the celebratory, italicised stanzas (outlining the
accomplishments of overlooked heroes) and the other stanzas which present his
anger and frustration about what “dem tell me” in school. However, this closing
refrain ends the poem on a triumphant note (significantly not in italics); the speaker
has followed in the footsteps of his newly discovered heroes and found his own path
to freedom. Unlike in The Emigree, the conflict of identity is eventually resolved in
this poem, as the speaker feels able to create a true version of himself now that he
is fully aware of his history.