Government legislation has radically rewritten the literary canon. The new national curriculum for English, which stipulates what must be studied from the ages of six to 16, states that pupils must analyse "texts from different cultures and traditions". It is a deliberately vague phrase: studying American culture would suffice under the remit, but the more adventurous exam boards, which issue anthologies of writing, have taken the courageous step of presenting pupils with literature that springs from cultures very different from the homogeneous "white" Anglo-Saxon mores that dominate the British media. In 1999, for example, pupils studying the Northern Examinations and Assessment Board GCSE syllabus read poems written in Caribbean and Glaswegian dialect, as well as tackling verse containing Gujarati, references to African gods, explorations of a Muslim's experience of apartheid, detailed descriptions of Pakistani fashions and a 19th-century Irish maid's thoughts on her repressive employers.
As an English teacher at a comprehensive school, I know that teaching these poems is not easy. Simply dealing with one poem can often involve discussing complicated issues of social class, regional dialect and accent, as well as the history of the British empire. Pupils also need to be familiar with conventional verse forms and poetry in order to understand why and how many of these poets subvert tradition. It can be arduous work, but it is worth it: pupils are learning that creative writing can express people's deepest grievances, thoughts and dreams, no matter what culture or social class they are from. They are learning, too, that careful readers can transport themselves into the heart of a culture entirely foreign, and discover its riches and secrets in a way more interesting than most backpackers would ever imagine.
As a consequence of this new component of the national curriculum, a whole new literary canon is being established. Once fashionable writers are being swept aside in favour of "multi- cultural" writing. A few years ago, most pupils' experience of modern poetry would have amounted to no more than a knowledge of the First World War poets (yes, they do qualify as modern) and the work of, say, John Betjeman, Charles Causley, Philip Larkin and Anthony Thwaite. Today, while there is still the opportunity to study the major writers, minor but technically accomplished poets such as George Barker and D J Enright have disappeared off syllabi in favour of a new canon of writers - Kamau Brathwaite, Moniza Alvi, Benjamin Zephaniah, Grace Nichols and John Agard.
Agard's poems have come to be regarded as seminal because they explain, energetically and wittily, why the new literary canon has been established. His "Listen Mr Oxford Don" begins:
"Me not no Oxford don/me a simple immigrant/from Clapham Common/I didn't graduate/I immigrate.
"But listen Mr Oxford don/I'm a man on de run/and a man on de run/is a dangerous one.
"I ent have no gun/I ent have no knife/but mugging de Queen's English/is the story of my life."
The Auberon Waughs of this world, with their love of easy rhyme, would throw up their arms in horror at this poem, especially if they knew that it is now a staple of the curriculum: it is not written in standard English, its verse forms are irregular and the spelling and punctuation are erratic. But that is the point. The poem is a cheeky cry of rage at an establishment that feels that if you speak or write in "black English"- or any other of the vernacular registers that Arthur Miller famously called "emergency speech" - you are "mugging de Queen's English".
But hold on. Agard is a skilful poet; he deliberately breaks the rules, writes very rhythmically while eschewing metrical correctness, and slyly exploits and implicitly ridicules the stereotype of the black man being a mugger. He goes on to say: "Dem accuse me of assault on de Oxford dictionary/imagine a concise peaceful man like me/dem want me serve time for inciting rhyme to riot".
There is a dynamism and playfulness here that is lacking in most of the writing by the poets who make up the old "literary canon". Donald Davie, Geoffrey Hill and even our dear current poet laureate frame their verse with such technical correctness that you would never accuse them of "inciting rhyme to riot". Implicit in their elevation of formal structures is the notion that there are certain practitioners who know better than everyone else, and that these are the people who write "real poetry".
Agard is much more of a democrat: by his lights, anyone can write poetry, no matter what his or her background. Agard's philosophy has been taken to heart by the educational establishment, which has, at last, accepted that England's multicultural mix of pupils was simply not being served by the old syllabi. As a result, there has been a mass (and deserved) culling of white, middle-class writing from the school textbooks; what would not have been deemed fit for pupils' consumption 20 years ago has become part of the new canon.
Previously, the new vernacular writers were viewed a bit like outlaws, hovering on the edge of a town that was run by a cabal. Now the outlaws have swept into the neighbourhood, marginalised - but not obliterated - the old guard, and created an enlightened place where everyone's voice is valued. Long may the new regime prosper.
Francis Gilbert is a teacher. He is completing a novel set in wartime Hungary
