Key Quote
“"Paper that lets the light shine through, this is what could alter things."”
Imtiaz Dharker · Tissue
Focus: “alter things”
The opening establishes Dharker's central argument: paper — fragile, translucent, apparently weak — has more power to change the world than the solid structures (buildings, borders, wealth) we build to control it.
Technique 1 — EXTENDED METAPHOR — PAPER AS POWER
Dharker constructs an extended metaphor where paper represents all the systems through which humans try to control the world: maps draw borders, receipts track commerce, holy books dictate belief, and architects' plans create structures. Yet paper is fragile — it tears, fades, and lets light through. Dharker argues that the systems we build on paper are equally impermanent, and this fragility is not a weakness but a form of wisdom.
The image of paper that 'lets the light / shine through' carries spiritual resonance — light as truth, enlightenment, or divine presence. Translucent paper (like the thin pages of the Quran or Bible) permits light to pass through rather than blocking it. Dharker suggests that the most profound texts and structures are those that remain permeable (allowing things to pass through) rather than solid and controlling.
Key Words
RAD — PROGRESS
The poem charts a conceptual progression from paper as a recording tool (maps, receipts, holy books) to paper as a metaphor for human life itself. The final revelation — 'turned into your skin' — represents the ultimate progression of the metaphor: we ourselves are tissue, fragile and temporary. This insight is liberating rather than despairing: if all structures are temporary, then oppressive systems (borders, wealth, power) can be reimagined and rebuilt.
Key Words
Technique 2 — ENJAMBMENT AS STRUCTURAL ENACTMENT
Dharker uses extreme enjambment — almost every line runs into the next without pause, often splitting phrases across stanza breaks: 'Paper that lets the light / shine through'. This structural choice enacts (performs) the poem's argument: just as light passes through tissue paper, meaning passes through the line breaks without being contained. The form refuses to be confined by its own boundaries.
The final line stands alone: 'turned into your skin.' This single, isolated line after ten quatrains creates a dramatic structural shift — the entire poem has been building towards this revelation. The shift from 'paper' to 'skin' transforms the abstract metaphor into something visceral and personal. The reader becomes the tissue: fragile, temporary, luminous.
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Context (AO3)
DHARKER'S MULTICULTURAL IDENTITY
Dharker was born in Pakistan, raised in Glasgow, and lives between India, London, and Wales. Her poetry reflects a transnational (crossing national boundaries) perspective: she is suspicious of borders, fixed identities, and the structures that divide people. 'Tissue' draws on the thin pages of the Quran ('the kind that lets the light / shine through') — linking fragility to sacred wisdom and suggesting that the most important truths are the most delicate.
GLOBALISATION & IMPERMANENCE
The poem references 'receipts' and 'a fine slippage' of money — the global economic systems that control modern life. Dharker suggests that the systems we treat as permanent (capitalism, borders, institutions) are in fact as fragile as paper. This connects to postmodern thinking about the constructed nature of all social systems: if we built them, we can rebuild them differently.
Key Words
WOW — PALIMPSEST & DERRIDA'S DECONSTRUCTION
Dharker's paper is a palimpsest — a surface that has been written on, erased, and rewritten multiple times, carrying traces of all previous inscriptions. Jacques Derrida's theory of deconstruction argues that all texts (and by extension, all systems of meaning) contain internal contradictions that undermine their apparent stability. Dharker deconstructs the power of paper: maps claim to represent territory but are merely lines on a page; receipts claim to represent value but are merely ink. By revealing the fragility of the medium (paper) through which power operates, Dharker exposes the fragility of power itself. The final move — 'turned into your skin' — connects to Derrida's concept of écriture (writing) as inscribed on the body: our identities are texts, written by culture, biology, and experience, and like all texts, they can be reinterpreted. Dharker's vision is ultimately hopeful: if everything is tissue, then everything can be remade.
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