tissue

imtiaz dharker

Published: 2006

Birth – Death: 1954 - ?

Monarch: Elizabeth II

Prime Minister: Tony Blair (Labour)

Nationality: British

Dharker writes a series of poems in her book ‘The Terrorist at my Table’ all linking to similar themes of childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief. The book asks questions about how we live now – working, travelling, eating, listening to the news, preparing for attack. The poem Tissue looks at conflict in terms of destruction and politics particularly, it hints that our own conflict is produced by placing power and control as a necessity but that we need to relax and remember we are all human.

who is imtiaz dharker?

Imtiaz Dharker is a contemporary poet, artist and documentary filmmaker.

Dharker was born in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan but was brought up in Glasgow where her family moved to when she was less than a year old.

She was married to Simon Powell, the founder of the organization Poetry Live, who died in October 2009 after surviving for eleven years with cancer.

Dharker spends her time between London, Wales, and Mumbai. She is said she is adopted by India and married into Wales.

Her daughter Ayesha Dharker, (whose father is Anil Dharker), is an actress in international films, television and stage.

Dharker has written 6 books of poetry Purdah (1989), Postcards from God (1997), I speak for the Devil (2001), The Terrorist at my Table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009) and Over the Moon (2014) (all self-illustrated).

Dharker was a member of the judging panel for the 2008 Manchester Poetry Prize, with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. For many she is seen as one of Britain's most inspirational contemporary poets.

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. In the same year, she was awarded the Cholmondeley Prize by the Society of Authors.

She has won the Queen’s Gold Medal for her English poetry in 2014 with the Terrorist at my Table.

In 2011 she judged the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award with the poet Glyn Maxwell.

In 2012 she was nominated a Parnassus Poet at the Festival of the World, hosted by the Southbank Centre as part of the Cultural Olympiad 2012, the largest poetry festival ever staged in the UK, bringing together poets from all the competing Olympic nations.

She was the poet in residence at the Cambridge University Library in January–March 2013.

In July 2015 she appeared on the popular BBC Radio 4 program Desert Island Discs and spoke about growing up in Glasgow and her decision to leave her family and elope to India, as well as her second marriage to the late Simon Powell.

Dharker is also a documentary filmmaker and has written and directed over a hundred films and audio-visuals, centring on education, reproductive health and shelter for women and children. In 1980 she was awarded a Silver Lotus for a short film.

She has had ten solo exhibitions of pen-and-ink drawings in India, Hong Kong, USA, UK and France.

what is tissue about?

Dharker has written five collections of poetry and often deals with themes of identity, the role of women in contemporary society and the search for meaning. She draws on her multi-cultural experience in her work.

Dharker is interested in global social issues such as health and education, including the impact of war and politics on everyday family life.

The poet explores the characteristics of tissue and applies it to a world at conflict with the people who have made it. The poet addresses some of the larger issues such as greed for power, pride and over entitlement.

The Koran, buildings, maps and receipts are all symbols of wider issues in the world, notably religion, structures of power like the twin towers but also the major cities and landmarks of various nations. Maps represent borders of countries and the divides in politics and culture while receipts could represent the influence of money and wealth on society, for better or worse. The poet wonders what the world would be like if these things were more like the tissue, which can be easily torn and disregarded.

what is tissue about?

Published in 2006 as a series of poems related to a world stricken by fundamentalism.

Tissue is the first poem in this collection.

Winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2014.

Dharker draws from her cultural experience from Pakistan, Britain and India.

It follows themes of: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, grief.

The book is illustrated by her and her own creations and ideas.

It asks: ‘What do any of us know about the person who shares this street, this house, this table, this body? When life is in the hands of a fellow-traveller, a neighbour, a lover, son or daughter, how does the world shift and reform itself around our doubt, our belief?’.