Hello everybody and welcome to this video where I'm going to analyse the Imtiaz Dharker
poem ‘Tissue’.
‘Tissue’ is widely regarded as the most complex of all of the poems in the power and
conflict cluster. Every single week, people are messaging me, asking me if I can make
this video. So, here we go.
Now, I agree that this is a very difficult poem. And what makes it so tricky is the way
in which there is no simple literal meaning to the poem. It's an example of impressionistic
poetry where everything is filled with symbolic meaning. And because of this, it's impossible
to say what the poem actually means. There are a number of valid ways it can be interpreted.
However, you don't need to panic too much. There's some help to be had in the fact that
the poem is placed within the power and conflict cluster.
Now a lot of websites, if you think about the BBC website, they analysed it in very
general terms – “Well, ‘Tissue’ is a metaphor for life,” and this kind of thing
– but it’s too vague. We're looking at it as a power and conflict poem, and we need
to ask ourselves, “What does the poem say about power? What does the poem say about
conflict?”
So I'm going to give you two different ways to look at the poem. One in terms of power,
one in terms of conflict. If we try to focus on power, we can read ‘Tissue’ as a critique
of human power, highlighting the fragility of man's power and the true power of nature.
So you can compare it quite nicely to ‘Ozymandias’ in that way and, perhaps, ‘Extract from
The Prelude’ a little bit as well.
So, in this interpretation, paper is used to symbolise mankind, both being fragile and
yet powerful at the same time. So we need to see paper as a metaphor for human power.
And once we have that in mind, the poem becomes at least a bit easier to understand.
In the second part of the video, I'll show you how you can see the poem in terms of a
conflict poem, how it is about the causes of conflict. So let's get into it.
The first thing to look at is the poet. Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist, and filmmaker;
born in 1954 in Pakistan, but brought up in Scotland.
She describes herself as a “Scottish Pakistani Muslim Calvinist, adopted by India and by
Wales as well”. And we'll come back to the importance of that in a second. The main themes
of her poetry include geographical and cultural displacement, communal conflict and gender.
This poem comes from the collection ‘The Terrorist at my Table’, the 2006 collection,
poems about a world stricken by fundamentalism. And ‘Tissue’ is the first poem in that
collection, which is actually quite significant. As a conflict poem, we can read ‘Tissue’
as a commentary on what causes fundamentalism, what causes terrorism in the world today.
Now because the poem is so full of symbolism, there isn't a lot to gain through looking
at the literal translation. But I do want to whizz through it quickly and give you some
ideas. But what I will say is this, there are so many lines that are ambiguous and mysterious,
but, really, we don't need to understand absolutely everything because we're focusing our analysis
on power and conflict, as you will be in the exam.
So some lines, as always you might think, “I don't think that's what it means.”
Or you might think, “Well, what does that bit mean?” But as long as we have an analysis
based on power and conflict, we're fine.
So, ‘Tissue’, let's think about the title first. It's an ambiguous title. What is ‘tissue’?
Well, there are two things that are important in this analysis. Yes, it's very thin paper.
But it's also the material that we as humans are made up of, human tissue. And both are
referred to in this poem. So the two meanings help us bring together the metaphor that human
power is fragile like tissue. And this is an idea explored throughout the poem, but
exemplified very simply in the title of the poem, which has an ambiguous double meaning
that draws together the metaphor of human power being fragile.
Stanza one: paper that lets the light
shine through, this is what could alter things.
Paper thinned by age or touching. So a simple translation would be: ‘Thin
paper can change things. It can alter things, and, as such, it has power’.
the kind you find in well-used books, the back of the Koran, where a hand
has written in the names and histories, who was born to whom,
the height and weight, who died where and how, on which sepia date,
pages smoothed and stroked and turned transparent with attention.
So what's it saying here? ‘Well, like the paper in religious books or family histories
where you write down details of a baby's life’.
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.
So, now it's moving on to, ‘in the real world, paper is not powerful. You wouldn't
build a building out of it.’
Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks
that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds,
So, here we have the fact that paper has power when it is used to divide and to mark out,
to segregate, to order, to control.
Fine slips from grocery shops that say how much was sold
and what was paid by credit cards might fly our lives like paper kites
So, paper seems to have power in commerce, through receipts which control money in finance.
But it's all an illusion. It's all like a paper kite. There's no real control.
An architect could use all this, place layer over layer, luminous
script over numbers over line, and never wish to build again with brick
or block, but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths,
through the shapes that pride can make, find a way to trace a grand design
So this is where, as with many of the poems, as it goes on it gets more and more ambiguous.
But what are we saying here? Well, paper could be used by an architect to create, to never
build again with brick, but let these buildings be made of paper so that light can shine through
governments and make a 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. So, it's really saying, ‘With human skin,
make something fragile, paper.’ So if we look at stanza one, let's try and understand
what's going on here.
‘Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things.’ Now, firstly,
let’s see if we can understand what kind of paper is being described. What is paper
that lets the light shine through? Well, have you ever seen an old Bible? The paper in a
Bible is so thin. It's made of what's called India paper, very tough, thin, nearly see-through
paper. And there seems to be some comment on religious power taking place here, backed
up by the reference to the Koran in stanza two. The Koran being the Islamic holy book.
So there's a metaphor here that backs this up as well, which is the metaphor of light
– ‘let the light shine through’. What is light? Well, the poet, as we've talked
about, labels herself as a Muslim Calvinist, referencing two religions, Islam and Christianity.
So how does light play a part in those religions? Well, in the Bible, Jesus says, “I am the
light of the world.” In the Koran, it says, “Allah is the Light of the heavens and the
earth.” So we can read that ‘light’ here, along with the reference to the Koran,
is a comment on the power of religion, with light perhaps being a metaphor for God.
And what can the power of God do? It can ‘alter things’. Now what does this mean? Well,
it means it can change things. In other words, God has power. That's one little look at the
idea of religious power. But all the way throughout the poem, ‘light’ is also used as a metaphor
for nature. References to nature are seen throughout the poem. They include ‘light’,
‘wind’, ‘sunshine’, and ‘daylight’. So we're going to say that there's one nice
metaphor to do with religious power in the early part of the poem, but ‘light’, throughout
There are no marks awarded, though, for working out what's going on in the poem. We need to
look at the poetic techniques taking place. So what do we have here at the end, the final
line of stanza one and, then, the complete stanzas two and three? Well, one of the things
we clearly have is enjambment, where the sentences in the poem continue and flow over onto the
next line and, in fact, onto the next stanza.
It's quite interesting, when you analyse the poem, that the final line in stanza one is
the beginning of a new topic - this thing about using the paper to write down family
histories. But by breaking the stanza and making a stanza break there, it is a deliberate
choice by the poet. So we found enjambment, where a sentence continues onto separate lines
and, here, onto separate stanzas.
So why add a forced break at an odd time? Well, in general terms, the structure of the
poem through the use of enjambment lacks control. It defies restrictions, and the freedom of
the lines reflects the lack of control or power mankind truly has. It's the same technique
used in ‘My Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning, a poem all about the supposed power and control
of humans, but undermining it through the lack of control and organisation and order
in the line structure through the use of enjambment.
And you could even make a comment about the fact that the forced break between stanzas
one and two symbolises the distinct difference between the power of God and the power of
man. You could even say that the act of writing family notes in a holy book, maybe, is a metaphor
for man disrespecting God, trying to take his place, writing the holy book as it were.
This is the ambiguity of the poem. You can just think of lots of different ideas. There's
no kind of ‘this is definitely the answer’. But the forced stanza break suggests that
the structure is not ordered and controlled and undermines the suggested order and control
that humans supposedly have.
Now to enforce this, the poem is written in free verse. It does not rhyme or have a regular
rhythm. There's no consistency of syllables per line. And, again, these choices reflect
the lack of power man has. As much as mankind tries to order, arrange, and control – and
we'll look at more of that in a second – the structural choices from the poet undermine
this and suggest that the efforts of futile.
There's also some repetition taking place here. The word ‘transparent’ is repeated
later in the poem. We can ask ourselves, “Why is this?” Well, the word has a double meaning,
like so much in this poem. Yes, it means ‘see-through’. So, in a literal sense then, it would describe
the paper. But what about in terms of power? Well, the word ‘transparent’ means honest
and clear. And the repetition draws us to the importance of this word. Perhaps the poet
is suggesting that those in power need to be honest and open and clear to succeed.
Now, in the following stanzas, there are numerous references to things which hold power that
are man made – buildings, maps, receipts. We give these things power. But the poet is
suggesting that they don't really have power. So let's look at them individually.
‘Buildings’… Now, buildings are later referred to as ‘capitals and monoliths’
which a lot of you might struggle with. We need to explore that. ‘Capitals and monoliths’
represent human governments and buildings. They symbolise human power. So they are buildings
that represent human government and power.
And ‘maps’ is an interesting one.
‘Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines, the marks
that rivers make, roads, railtracks, mountainfolds,’
It took me some time, thinking about the significance of this, but what do maps do? They segregate;
they divide the natural world. How? Through man's power. Man chooses how to divide the
natural world to control countries, borders, civilisations. Man makes the decision about
borderlines and all of these kinds of thing. And maps are a great example of man trying
to exert his power over nature, creating divides which are not naturally there.
And look at the way this is a list on the screen, a list of things in maps broken up
by commas here. The listing device is important because it's listing different aspects of
a map which reflects man's desire to order and control everything. Even the natural environment.
so the listing here, the tight control, suggests that man exerts his power over nature through
trying to segregate and control and divide. But, of course, the enjambment throughout
the poem undermines that power. So there's two different things taking place.
So, what about the next bit? ‘Fine slips from grocery shops
that say how much was sold and what was paid by credit card
might fly our lives like paper kites.’ What does this mean? This quotation refers
to receipts. When you buy something, you get a little written or printed statement acknowledging
that something's been paid for, all the goods have been received. And, again, receipts are
man-made. They’re used to control, through the governance of money, if you like.
So the metaphor that receipts can ‘fly our lives’, the simile ‘like paper kites’
suggests that money dominates us; it controls us; it has power over us. So there are a number
of references to human power and control through the extended metaphor of paper.
But now we have to ask ourselves, “What does the poet think about this?” So we've
established the different ways that man tries to control things. Paper is a metaphor. Through
the buildings, through the maps, through the receipts, man exerts power and control.
But as we've already established then, paper is a symbol of human power. Receipts can ‘fly
our lives like paper kites’, but they are fragile and easily destroyed. Paper kites
are easily destroyed. They're fragile. Receipts are manmade. The suggestion here, then, is
that man-made power is not permanent. And this is the key thing, I think, for this poem.
The most simple way to analyse it is that it suggests man has power, then undermines
that and suggests, “Well, actually, no. Man doesn't have power. We think we have power,
but nature has power.” And that ties in really nicely with ‘Ozymandias’ and the
‘Extract from The Prelude’ as well.
So the power of nature, let's look at how the power of nature is shown as more powerful
than the power of man. When we read about the paper maps, the sun shines through them.
We get this sense that nature's power is permanent and overpowers and overwhelms man's attempt
at control and power.
The sun, a symbol of nature, overpowers the paper. It shines through it. And this symbolism
is further explored with the suggestion that ‘daylight breaks through capitals and monoliths’.
So, once again, the ‘daylight’, being a symbol of nature because it is a natural
thing, nature breaks through the man-made power. Nature is more powerful than human
power. And like ‘Ozymandias’, the poet seems to be mocking man's attempts at dominance
and power, showing how nature – and in the opening, perhaps, we could say God – far
outweighs the power of mankind.
The final line of the poem, then, reminds us of the title. Structurally it's quite interesting
because it is a single-line stanza. And if ever this happens, it's just because the poet
wants to emphasise the significance of this line.
So what does the line tell us - ‘turned into your skin’? Well, this is the line,
really, where human skin and tissue paper are made to link together. And it really takes
us back to the point from the title. It's a metaphor which highlights – extended metaphor
throughout the poem – how human power is fragile like tissue paper.
Now I've gone on for a long time here about how you can see the poem as a poem of power.
You can also look at the poem as a poem of conflict. I prefer it as a poem of power because
I think there's not as much to analyse in terms of conflict.
So, everything I've gone through there is really good stuff, but you can see this poem
as a poem of conflict, suggesting that we cause our own conflict as humans. We give
things power that don't deserve that power – money, government, religion. And if we
were to actually treat these things like tissue, if we were to realise that they are fragile,
we would be happier.
So, in this interpretation of the conflict side of the poem, the Koran, the buildings,
the maps, the shopping receipts, they are symbols of wider issues in the world – religion,
structures of power, major cities, landmarks of various nations, maps representing borders
of countries and the divides in politics and culture, receipts representing the influence
of money and wealth on society. And all of that is suggesting that that is the cause
of conflict.
We can take it one step further, can’t we, and say, “Not just conflict but fundamentalism;
terrorism,” because this is the first poem in the collection ‘The Terrorists at my
Table’. Perhaps what the poet is saying is that religious extremism and politics and
land disputes and that kind of thing cause fundamentalism, cause terrorism.
So, to conclude, it is a very complex poem. I have certainly not explained or explored
every line and every image. But I think it helps us to look at it as a poem about power
and a poem about conflict, about humans thinking they are so powerful and exerting their power
but nature overpowering it. And I think that's a great line to take because it just compares
nicely then with ‘Ozymandias’.
If you look at it as a conflict poem, it's perhaps exploring how these things cause conflict;
how religion, structures of power, and landmarks and borders and divisions in politics and
culture, how they cause conflict.
I hope you found this video useful and please do subscribe to the channel if you haven't
done so already. Check out the e-books at MrBruff.com, including the poetry guide. It
doesn't contain this poem because it's under copyright, but it does contain ten poems across
the two clusters. So, please do check out MrBruff.com