Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist, and filmmaker whose work traverses the borders of Pakistan, her country of origin, and her adopted countries of India and the UK. "Tissue,” originally published in Dharker's 2006 collection The terrorist at my table, explores the materiality of paper and the way it has been used throughout history.
In the poem, the speaker meditates on various aspects of paper. It lets the light shine through in a way that is capable of altering things. Some paper is thinned by age or from being touched, like the kind in well-used books. The speaker focuses in on personal histories written on the back of the Koran. The attention and touch bestowed on these pages turn them transparent over time. Imagining buildings as paper, the speaker contemplates their fragility. Other forms of paper such as maps and grocery business records are also considered. The poem ends with the speaker replacing building materials with paper that an architect uses to build with. The tissue of these structures transforms into skin.
The terrorist at my table was well-received. The poems in the collection center on the fragility inherent to the normal routines and structures of life. This fragility can become violently unsettled, but it also helps form love and trust between people. In London Magazine, Alan Ross reviewed the collection: "Hers is a strong, concerned, economical poetry, in which political activity, homesickness, urban violence, religious anomalies, are raised in an unobtrusive domestic setting, all the more effectively for their coolness of treatment."
