TISSUE LO Explore Power in the poem Before

TISSUE LO: Explore Power in the poem

Before we begin… The first thing you need to understand is that this poem will not make sense in a literal way! SO DON’T PANIC! You have to think of this poem as if it was a piece of ABSTRACT ART. So, YOU (the reader) can decide on the meanings of this abstract piece. You will not necessarily be able to thread a consistent ‘story’ through this poem. I think of it as a series of images and metaphors which raise questions and have layers of meaning Analyse this picture – what do you see? .

Tissue ◦ It has 2 distinct meanings: ◦ It is layers of think translucent paper ◦ It is layers of cells that make up our skin and flesh PAPER AND TISSUE become a METAPHOR for the FRAGILITY of HUMAN POWER.

Context and WM – Imtiaz Dharker is a modern poet ◦ Mixed heritage: born in Pakistan and brought up in Scotland. ◦ She labels herself a Muslim and a Calvinist (christian) - both religions use the metaphor of light to symbolise the good and power of God. SOME OF THE BIG IDEAS: - Fragile power of Man - metaphor of paper - Power of Nature/Time - Power of God

Structure and Form 4 Line ordered stanzas – mirror power/control humans think they can exert Enjambement – the order created by the stanzas is completely undermined by the use of enjambement which force the reader to read ‘through’ the stanza breaks. - this could symbolise the power of time and nature overwhelming human control - it might also symbolise the power of the spiritual to move through everything/ ultimately control everything# Irregular rhythm/rhyme – unpredictable power of humans - mirrors the fluttering of tissue paper as rhythm is so unsteady - show vulnerable we are as makes the reader feel disconcerted - humans have disrupted the regular rhythm of nature?

Stanza 1: ‘Paper’ ‘Light’ ‘Alter’ Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things. Paper thinned by age or touching, Paper – Metaphor for Human power – fragile, delicate, easily broken, disposable Light – Metaphor for power of nature, power of God, power knowledge/wisdom Alter – means to change but it is also a part of the church.

Stanza 2 &3 the kind you find in well-used books, Paper is about recording our lives, religions, deaths. It is at once important and irrelevant the back of the Koran, where a hand has written in the names and histories, who was born to whom, Transparent with attention – transparent is REPEATED. the height and weight, who died where and how, on which sepia date, pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention. Positive – Those who are the most powerful perhaps are the ones who let the light shine through them (spiritually or with knowledge).

Stanza 4&5 If buildings were paper, I might feel their drift, see how easily they fall away on a sigh, a shift in the direction of the wind. Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds, Is the speaker suggesting that buildings are not permanent and that nature will always WIN? This is perhaps seen through the juxtaposition of the hard and plosive sounds of ‘b’, ‘p’ and ‘d’ with the sibilance of ‘sigh’ and ‘shift’. This echoes Ozymandias and the sibilance seems to reflect the gentle but unrelenting power of time. Human power is also seen as FUTILE (pointless) as we try and codify and control the natural world by making artificial boundaries. The speaker of the poem seems to suggest that the light of the ‘sun shines’ through such artificial and arbitrary boundaries. Ultimately, the real power is nature and perhaps the spiritual light which looks beyond such man-made contructs.

An architect could use all this, place layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line, Stanza 7 -9 On these stanza’s, I’m going to raise a lot of questions rather than try and provide answers: and never wish to build again with brick Architect of buildings – seem to move form concept of inanimate to the building of animate thing? Such as humanity? or block, but let the daylight break Repetition of ‘layer’ points to how Dharker sees us? We are built layer by layer – our identity forms slowly and is influence by lots of layers and light? through capitals and monoliths, through the shapes that pride can make, find a way to trace a grand design with living tissue, raise a structure never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked and thinned to be transparent, turned into your skin. ‘grand design’ – is that suggesting that it is all transient (not permanent) because we are all part of a bigger picture- religious overtones of the language? ‘never meant to last’ – ominious- suggesting life is part of a cycle and that everyone and everything will die and succumb to the power of nature and time? Sibilance used again to reinforce that gentle momentum of time. Skin is the external covering of our bodies. Points to the superficial nature of human power?