Key Quote
“"just a piece of cloth / that makes the guts of men go blind"”
John Agard · Flag
Focus: “blind”
The word 'blind' captures the poem's central argument — nationalism does not illuminate but obscures, replacing rational thought with unthinking devotion to a symbol.
Technique 1 — REDUCTIVE LANGUAGE / DEFLATION
Agard repeatedly describes the flag as 'just a piece of cloth', using deliberately reductive language to strip the symbol of its accumulated power. By insisting on the flag's material reality — it is fabric, nothing more — Agard exposes the gap between what the flag is and what it is made to represent. This deflation technique works by refusing to grant the symbol any inherent meaning: all the power of the flag comes from human projection, not from the object itself.
The contrast between 'just a piece of cloth' and its effects — 'brings a nation to its knees', 'makes the guts of men go blind' — creates a devastating ironic juxtaposition. Something so materially insignificant should not be able to control entire populations, yet it does. Agard forces the reader to confront this absurdity: we kill and die for a piece of fabric. The repetition of 'just a piece of cloth' in every stanza becomes increasingly pointed, as each repetition is followed by a more extreme example of the flag's power over human behaviour.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
The poem traces a disturbing regression in which the flag reduces intelligent, autonomous human beings to blind followers. The escalating effects — from making cloth 'flutter' to 'bringing a nation to its knees' to making 'the guts of men go blind' — show nationalism progressively stripping away human faculties: first dignity (kneeling), then reason (blindness), then autonomy (following orders without question). The flag does not elevate humanity but diminishes it, transforming thinking individuals into obedient masses willing to kill and die for a symbol they have never questioned.
Key Words
Technique 2 — QUESTION-AND-ANSWER STRUCTURE
The poem is built on a strict call-and-response structure: each stanza opens with a naive question ('What's that fluttering in a breeze?') and answers with the refrain 'It's just a piece of cloth' followed by an increasingly disturbing consequence. This structure mimics a Socratic dialogue — a child asking simple questions that expose uncomfortable truths. The questioner's innocence contrasts with the devastating implications of each answer, suggesting that only a child's unindoctrinated perspective can see the flag for what it truly is.
The final stanza breaks the pattern with a volta (turn): 'Then blind your conscience to the flag / and I'll show you the cloth.' Here, Agard shifts from description to imperative (command), directly challenging the reader to reject nationalism. The word 'conscience' is crucial — it implies that following a flag requires a deliberate moral choice to stop thinking critically. The volta transforms the poem from observation to call to action, demanding that the reader actively resist the flag's power rather than passively accepting it.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
POST-9/11 NATIONALISM
Written in 2005, 'Flag' responds to the surge of nationalism that followed the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Flags became ubiquitous symbols of patriotic loyalty, and questioning them was treated as treasonous. Agard challenges this climate by insisting that unthinking devotion to national symbols is not patriotism but a form of blindness that enables governments to wage wars without public scrutiny.
COLONIAL AND POST-COLONIAL FLAGS
As a Caribbean-British writer, Agard is acutely aware of how flags have functioned as instruments of colonial power. The Union Jack, planted on colonised territories, was a symbol of domination and possession. Agard's poem can be read as a broader critique of how nations use symbols to legitimise control — from the British Empire's flag to modern nationalism, the 'piece of cloth' has always served those in power at the expense of those beneath it.
Key Words
WOW — BENEDICT ANDERSON — IMAGINED COMMUNITIES
Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities (1983) argues that nations are not natural entities but constructed beliefs — 'imagined' because most citizens will never meet each other, yet they share a sense of belonging. The flag is the ultimate symbol of this constructed identity: a piece of cloth invested with enormous emotional power through collective ideology. Agard's poem exposes the mechanism Anderson describes — the process by which a material object becomes a vessel for abstract loyalty, capable of making people kill strangers and die willingly. By calling the flag 'just a piece of cloth', Agard performs what Anderson would call demystification: stripping the symbol back to its material reality to reveal that nationalism is not a natural feeling but a carefully manufactured one. The poem asks: if you could see the flag as just fabric, would you still give your life for it?
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