Singh Song! By Daljit Nagra

Context Nagra is a British poet of Indian decent He was born in Bradford, 1966 He now lives and works in Britain The poem makes use of ‘Punglish’, a mixture of Punjabi and English to try and authenticate the work Nagra exploits stereotypes and celebrates them The name ‘Singh’ is a common Punjabi surname, meaning lion

Form and Structure The poem has a heightened lyrical sense- it is song like, as the name suggests The rhyme and rhythm work with the repetition to create a chorus-lie structure The structure is repetitive, but does not stay constant throughout The poem ends in four two-line stanzas, which help to create a closeness between the two speakers

Sound Phonetics are used to recreate the effect of Punglish, causing more ‘d’s and ‘v’s to be used This makes the poem more rhythmic and creates alliteration In the same way that the structure is irregular, the poem has a broken up rhyme scheme The end of the words rhyme the most, such as ‘chapatti’ and ‘Punjabi’, causing the poem to have a swing This is removed near the end to slow the pace down between the speaker and his wife

Imagery In the fourth stanza the speaker talks about a ‘cat and mouse’ leading the reader to believe the wife could be on a dating website. The confusion to as who is the cat and who is the mouse means the reader does not know if the wife is a victim or not The reader learns that the wife is dominant (‘tiny eyes ov a gun’) but affectionate (‘tummy ov a teddy’) ‘whispering stairs’ and ‘silver’ make the shop a romantic destination, backed by the ‘brightey moon’ The way the wife swears in ‘all di colours of Punjabi’ suggests variety and challenges stereotypes

Comparison to Checking Out Me History Both poems have non standard English and use phonetics to suggest accents Both poems challenge stereotypes and the way people think Both poems introduce an alternate viewpoint, the customers in Singh! Song, and the educational leadership in Checking Out Me History