14
Tissue (2006)
Imtiaz Dharker (b.1954)
Story
• The first 3 stanzas talk about the importance of paper as a means of recording out history.
• Stanzas 4-6 focus on the paradox that paper is fragile, yet it still controls our lives.
• The final 4 stanzas look at creating things, particularly human life:
o Life is more complex and precious than other things we create.
o Life is temporary, but forms part of a bigger on-going story.
Structure
• There are 3 main parts to the poem, moving through ideas about history, human experience and the creation of
human life.
• The poem builds to the final concluding image on the final, single-lined stanza, which puts emphasis on the
finality of the poem and the finality of human life.
• The use of unrhymed, irregular quatrains shows that human life is imperfect, but we struggle to be perfect as
life is also irregular.
Language
• Light: Light is presented as a positive force – it enables people to see and understand, it can move through and
beyond boundaries and it can break through objects.
• Creation: There are lots of references to things being created. Man-made constructions like buildings and
borderlines are compared with the creation of humans.
• Tissues: The homonyms of ‘tissue’ create a link between paper and humans – both tissue paper and human tissue
are fragile, but powerful. The word ‘tissue’ originally meant something that had been woven, which reinforces the
idea that human lives are built up in layers.
• Control: The poem mentions different things that control human life – there are references to money, religion,
nature, pride and governments (“capitals”).
• Freedom: The speaker imagines a world that breaks free of some of these restrictions, where human constructions
are less permanent and important.
Form
• The poetic voice is elusive, with focus on humanity in general rather than a specific person or speaker.
• The lack of regular rhythm or rhyme and the enjambment across lines and stanzas gives the poem a freedom
and openness, reflecting the narrator’s desire for freedom and clarity.
• The poem takes the form of a monologue.
Messages
• Nothing lasts forever. • The human spirit outlasts material things like paper and buildings.
• Human life is fragile. • Human beings feel a sense of conflict between the physical and spiritual.
• The conflict is between the fragility of human life and human desire to be everlasting.
• The power of paper:
o Historically: as a means of recording things (names, history).
o Economically: central to financial transactions and economy.
o Politically: as a way of confirming national borders.
• But paper is fragile and transient, just like human beings. Is Dharker suggesting our attempts to control the
world and fashion it to suit ourselves is futile?
• The poem is ultimately about the power that comes once we accept out impermanence; Dharker suggests that
understanding that we have shorter lives enables us to see the beauty of the human, which leads us to openness
and flexibility rather than intransigence and vanity.
