Poetry Analysis of Limbo, Blessing and Half Caste Essay

Poetry Analysis of Limbo, Blessing and Half Caste I have chosen four different poems of which come from varying cultural backgrounds and have a moral. I will now explain how the writers present their ideas and give the readers an insight into different cultures. Limbo is a poem, which shows us the feelings of slaves on slave ships written by Edward Kamau. This poem tells the story of slavery in a rhyming, rhythmic dance. It is ambitious and complex. There are two narratives running in parallel, which are, the actions of the dance, andthe history of the people, which is being enacted. The poem shows a lot of repetition of phrases such as Limbo Limbo like me, Limbo Limbo like me. This†¦show more content†¦From my own knowledge I know that a specific Christianity belief is that the word Limbo means a place between heaven and hell. This is where souls go and this is a very unpleasant place, which is difficult to escape, so the writer may be referring Limbo to be the unpleasant place between heaven and hell and not just a dance. John Agard: Half-Caste The poem half-caste develops a simple idea of the phrase Half Caste and gives the ironic suggestion of things only being half present. The writer opens the poem with a joke like half-caste is only like half made and the speaker stands on one leg as if the other is not there. Agard ridicules the term by showing how the greatest artists mix things - Picasso mixes the colours, and Tchaikovsky use the black and white keys in his piano symphonies, yet to call their art half-caste seems silly. The writer playfully points out how Englands weather is always a mix of light and shadow - leading to a very weak pun on half-caste and overcast (clouded over). The joke about one leg is recalled later in the poem, this time by suggesting that the half-caste uses only half of ear and eye, and offers half a hand to shake, leading to the absurdities of dreaming half a dream and