The Context of Unrelated Incidents :: Unrelated Incidents Tom Leonard Essays

The Context of Unrelated Incidents What is from Unrelated Incidents about? this is thi six a clock news thi man said n thi reason a talk wia BBC accent iz coz yi widny wahnt mi ti talk aboot thi trooth wia voice lik wanna yoo scruff. if a toktaboot thi trooth lik wanna yoo scruff yi widny thingk it wuz troo. jist wanna yoo scruff tokn. thirza right way ti spell ana right way to tok it. this is me tokn yir right way a spellin. this is ma trooth. yooz doant no thi trooth yirsellz cawz yi canny talk right. this is the six a clock nyooz. belt up. * The poem seems to be spoken by a BBC newsreader. * He or she explains why the BBC thinks it is important to read the news in a BBC accent: no one will take the news seriously if it's read with a voice lik / wanna yoo / scruff. It is not that simple, though! * He or she speaks here in the accent of an ordinary speaker/viewer - just the kind of voice which the newsreader is rejecting. * A newsreader would never really reveal his or her prejudices directly to the viewer in this way. So what the newsreader 'says' in this poem perhaps needs to be seen as the unspoken message (or sub-text) of the way the news is presented. Try re-writing the same poem in Standard English. Would it carry the same trooth? Structure and Language Structure The poem is carefully written in a phonetic version of the Glasgow accent. If you pronounce it exactly as it's written, it should sound more or less like a Glaswegian voice. Try to listen to Tom Leonard's own reading of this poem, which is on the BBC TV programme Roots and Water: Poems from Other Cultures and Traditions. Language The poet has played with language in a number of ways, apart from the phonetic spelling: * There is almost no punctuation. * There are lots of slang and colloquial words (scruff, belt up). * The newsreader talks directly to the reader (or viewer). How do these features add to the effectiveness of the poem? For example, there is a mismatch between the conventional image of BBC newsreaders, and what this one is saying - calling the viewers yoo scruff and telling them to belt up. The lines of the poem are very short. What effect does this have (especially when you read it aloud)? Does it make the poem sound serious or amusing? Tone and Ideas How would you read this poem? * Is it an amusing poem? * Is it a serious poem? Perhaps it is both. Is the poet arguing that this is actually the way the media think about us?