How to read the poem, Tissue.

The MEAING of the poem.

Hello again, Mr Gill here. Well done for logging back in (okay, you have to, but still…well done!).

WARNING!

Tissue is a poem that is sometimes feared. It has perhaps even required students – and even teachers! – needing a tissue after learning how to read it and after having a go of teaching it.

But, fear not!

It’s just got a lot of metaphors and symbols in it, making it a very abstract poem – or, if you want something more straight forward, we could just say that it’s a complex poem.

However, once we remove the curtain of metaphor it’s really not that hard to understand. In fact, I would go as far as saying that this is a brilliant poem, with a very clear meaning (though, I should say, that there are multiple plausible ways to interpret it).

This is a commentary I have put together to help you to understand the poem. It is not an essay - it is much too long (for your GCSE exam anyway) and much too chatty for that. Please feel free to take a break at any point – I appreciate there’s a lot of text here!

You will need a copy of the poem and the Silver and Gold Tissue worksheet open. You should answer the questions in this worksheet in you word document and then send to your teachers – you could also record notes in your anthologies (but this should an extra task, please make sure you email work to your teacher). If you want, you might even want to open the SILVER only poem and worksheet too - this might be a nice starting point.

Enjoy!

So, what is the poem about? How does it relate to the theme of power and conflict?

Well, it seems that this poems critiques (criticises) human power – in other words, it shows how human beings are not as powerful as we think we are (you might think of some students in your year group who, shall we say, have a rather large ego! Okay, there’s not many – we go to a nice school, don’t we?). This poem reminds us that we are fragilely made (we only have to turn on the TV or read a newspaper about the current pandemic to understand this). The title of the poem really captures the idea of our fragility as tissue paper is easily torn – and so is human tissue, just like the last time you cried out because you stumped you toe – showing how our lives on earth are transitory (short-lived). Therefore, Dharker reminds us that we are mortal and our power or longevity on earth – and even our legacies – are ephemeral (not forever); we will die and be forgotten but nature will endure (live on), which means it will outlive us. Therefore, this can also be seen as poem about the superior (more powerful than) power of nature.

‘Seriously? He really thinks that?’ I am’

‘Hey, look how powerful I am’

Put simply, we can read the poem like this:

a) A poem which presents the power of humans.

b) A poem which then undermines the power of humans, showing how nature is superior (more powerful!).

Now it’s time to fill in the first two sections of your worksheet.

Reading and understanding the poem:

Okay, so now we are going to look at the different stanzas in the poem.

Stanza 1 (the first section of the poem):

Here Dharker is referring to a religious text. The ‘light’ symbolically represents holiness and purity. This could be because sacred texts educate people morally – perhaps leading people to being able to see the moral ‘light’, where they are able to reject their vices like greed, alcoholism and hurting others and instead embrace goodliness. As a result, Dharker maybe refers to the happiness that one would feel as ‘light’ also connotes this. Moreover, through the verb ‘thinned’ Dharker is able to illustrate to the reader just how much these texts have been handled by people and by how many, again illustrating the power of religion. However, Dharker subtly uses the modal verb ‘could’ thereby implying that religion doesn’t hold this power over everyone, thus undermining the power of humans to influence all of mankind.

You’ve hit another milestone, well done. Now answer the next questions in your worksheet.

Stanza 2:

The idea of religion continues over the next stanza, echoing the idea that religious texts are things which have been cherished and loved as shown by the fact that they are ‘well-used’. Then, however, Dharker reveals that as well as being a text of religious instruction that the Koran contains more ordinary historical details too such as the names of people and their names of their mothers and fathers.

Stanza 3:

Stanza 2 continues onto stanza 3.

‘Sir, isn’t that what they call enjambment,’ three pupils scream together.

‘Oh, my goodness!’ Mr Gill bows in respect, appreciating the academic excellence before him.

Academically speaking, yes, we call this enjambment which means the line runs onto the next line – in this case the one line runs onto the next stanza. See below:

where a hand

See, the ‘the height and weight’ is an unfinished from the previous line ‘who was born to whom’; there’s also enjambment on the line below too ‘who/died where and how’.

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,

We need to consider why this is. Well, it allows Dharker to extend her list of the ordinary facts contained within the Koran, maybe stressing, therefore, that this information is pointless. Someone perhaps once deemed it so but it seems like an endless list of unimportant information. For example, in this stanza the reader learns that the Koran contains the ‘height and weight’ of people and where they ‘died’. This doesn’t really seem to be that important (it’s like your sister, brother or someone else telling you what they had for breakfast, how long it took them to eat it etc. ‘Who cares?’ you consider silently).

Congratulations, you’re almost half-way there. Take some more notes.

Stanza 4:

Now Dharker shifts the focus to ‘buildings’, suggesting that despite being concrete or glass they too are as delicate as paper, able to be ‘drift[ed]’ by the ‘wind’ or even ‘blown away.’ Dharker personifies the buildings as ‘sigh[ing]’ to almost mock humans’ vanity – to show we are too confident and proud of the things we have made. We have built constructions we thought were invincible and the audible sound of disappointment – a ‘sigh’ – is a way of decrying the wasted time people have invested in these buildings.

‘Wait, that’s a bit odd though, sir?’

‘Yes, it is actually,’ Mr Gill replies, warming to the enthusiasm of the student’s question.

Cleverly though, the use of personification shows just how silly humans are because it makes the inanimate objects – the buildings – seem wiser than humans.

Stanza 5

Dharker now further undermines humans – this time, through their desire to control. ‘Maps’ are human creations. The abruptness (suddenness) of the line, which is signalled by the caesura shows problematic borders can be. This is reinforced further as this is the only caesura in the whole poem which is punctuated with a full-stop and not a comma.

‘Sir, is that caesura thingy, when they place punctuation mid-line to stop the flow of the poem?’

‘It certainly is,’ Mr Gill silently applauds, his smile as wide as a clown’s (sorry, a creepy image).

Th effect of the caesura is that it elongates the pause (it makes the pause longer) perhaps mirroring how long people must wait at a border, which shows how difficult they are. Consider, for example, how borders can prevent fleeing refugees desperately trying to get evade danger in their homelands. Moreover, as well as showing how inconvenient borders can be, Dharker also shows how unnatural they are. After all, they are man-made. Therefore, Dharker seems to say that nature is a much more natural border – hence why she makes ‘light’ shine through the maps, exposing the mistakes that have been made by humans to control the flow of people. Instead, our borders should be divided by ‘mountainfolds’ and ‘rivers.’

Over half-way. Answer some more questions.

Stanza 6

Now onto money receipts, also made from something which resembles tissue paper (you can see the extended metaphor very clearly now – an extended metaphor is one that runs over a few lines or continues throughout the poem). So, again, the stanza repeats the idea of human power being used to control. The many transactions keep a record of how much we have spent and where we have spent it.

The simile ‘credit cards might fly our lives like paper kites’ also shows the power money has to control us. Although it can set us free – like a kite flying in the air – which I read to mean giving you or I (or our families) the opportunity to purchase whatever we want, it also has the power to destabilise us. This is why it is like a gust of wind suddenly blowing the kite way into the air – and it can fill our lives with debt we may never be able to pay off. For example, some people buy TVs and sofas they can’t afford on credit card and struggle to pay the debt off. Have you ever loaned some money from a friend that you struggled to pay back?

Smashing it. Answer another question. Nearly there.

Stanzas 7 and 8:

These stanzas echo the ideas in stanza 5. An architect is almost being advised by advised by Dharker to use tissue paper instead of ‘brick[s]’ and ‘block[s]’. Alternatively, on line 29, stanza 8, she says this would allow the sun - or ‘daylight’ - to shine through them. Why, you might ask? Well, she says it will shine through ‘capitals and monoliths’ instead.

Firstly, ‘capitals’ could represent the government – capital cities, after all, are where most important government buildings can be found. ‘Monoliths’ are large often corporate office blocks, built to show power and wealth. But perhaps Dharker shows they are a symbol of greed – just like the architects ‘pride’, which perhaps inspired them to build a grand building they would always be remembered by. Dharker again calls upon the power of nature – this time, the sun, as it has the ability to expose the folly of pride; the fact that we are guilty of spending too much time on things which aren’t really that important. Consider, for example, if your school was made out of diamonds – this wouldn’t really improve your education, would it?

But perhaps also she wants the sun to shine through these buildings too. Sometimes governments can be corrupt or choose to wage war for financial gain. This is arguably why she wants ‘daylight’ to expose the truth within these buildings. Light in this way acts as a metaphor for truth and transparency so you and I know exactly how the government are conducting their business. Think, for example, about the current coronavirus pandemic. It is only now the government have declared a blank cheque of the NHS; before, this money was never available, yet we were believed to think that this is because it just wasn’t there…

Stanzas 9 and 10

Finally, Dharker then reminds us of another structure: humans. Like buildings, we were never ‘meant to last.’ The final word of the poem is ‘skin’ is something that can be scratched and scraped easily, broken like tissue paper. Ending with this word underlines the transitory nature of human lives and therefore perhaps calls upon us to change our behaviour by recognising our mortality. Moreover, the fact that the last line is isolated could symbolically represent how humans have become divided, isolating others in their quest for power. The answer to this it seems is the light. The motif of light permeates through the poem. The real power of humans, it seems, is to embrace the values which light represents: purity, truth, goodness. It is likely that Dharker sees this as working together as a society rather than individuals, fuelled by ambition and pride, trying to realise their own selfish ambitions which cause a divide in society. Moreover, the fact that the ‘light’ of nature spills throughout the poem shows how nature is superior to humans – and, in another way, that’s why perhaps the last line, which refers to humans’ ‘skin’, is placed on its own: it echoes how unimportant we are as we are one line, nature is everything else.

FINISHED – this is the end of the SILVER and GOLD section. The next section is GOLD only.

Well, that’s all for this week…But, if you would like a little extra, read the additional information below. Take care and stay safe, Mr Gill.

Additional GOLD information:

We can also read this poem as a poem of conflict. I will spend less time taking about this theme but here are some ideas…Dharker is perhaps revealing the things that are sources of conflict in our lives: religion (or extremism even), corrupt governments who exert too much control over others’ lives, the danger of immoral ambition and excessive pride. These qualities have a tendency to divide human beings, polarising them and, as a result, cause conflict such as civil or international war. This interpretation of the poem is interesting though as Dharker said at a Poetry Live conference in Bath 2018 that she was ‘surprised’ that this poem had ended up in a cluster about power and conflict because she was writing about all the things that were ‘important’ to her.

Stanza 3 :

The generic way in which this information is revealed – i.e. the absence of specific detail, such as the exact height of individual or the exact date of the death – is arguably a discreet way that Dharker uses to show that there is nothing unique about human beings; we are all the same creatures – all inferior to higher notions of nature which will outlive us. The last line of stanza 3 serves to undermine the religious texts in a different way. Although on the surface it reiterates the idea that religious texts have been so important to people – so much so that the pages have no become ‘transparent’ with attention – the idea of transparency could allude to the fact that people can see through the falsehood of their ideas; they have become non-believers.

Stanza 4:

This makes me imagine the shocking terrorist attack of 9/11, when two planes collided in the Twin Towers – the heart of America’s economy – causing them to collapse in minutes. Thus, it helps demonstrate that even something so sophisticated as an entire economy can be destroyed – and, in this case, seemingly without much effort, a mere ‘shift in the direction of the wind.’ Dharker personifies the buildings as ‘sigh[ing]’ to almost mock humans’ vanity. They have built constructions they thought were invincible and the audible sound of disappointment – a ‘sigh’ – is a way of decrying the wasted time people have invested in these buildings. Cleverly though, the use of personification accentuates this further as it makes the inanimate objects – the buildings – seem wiser than humans, as they are sage to the follies of humans that the humans don’t seem to be aware of.

Stanza 6:

The many transactions keep a record of how much we have spent and where we have spent it; something only reinforced with the invention of ‘credit cards’ – as these purchases are logged in our bank accounts, an indelible record. A government, for example, can see exactly how much you have spent, they will know where you have travelled to, who you bought your possessions from etc. This data could be used to control us further. For instance, theoretically, the government could see that a high proportion of people have purchased sugary items in a supermarket. Knowing this, they could then choose to impose a higher sugar tax if they wanted (yes, that would mean you might have to pay even more for a Snickers or a Mars bar, or whatever else you like to scoff on!).

The simile ‘credit cards might fly our lives like paper kites’ also shows the power money has to control us. Paradoxically, although it can set us free – like a kite flying in the air – which I read to mean giving you or I (or our families) the opportunity to purchase whatever we want, it also has the power to destabilise us – like a gust of wind suddenly blowing the kite way into the air – and it can fill our lives with insurmountable debt we may never be able to pay off. The capitalist world whilst giving us the notion of liberty and freedom, therefore, also has the power to shackle and imprison us – perhaps this is represented by the hand holding the kite: the kite is always anchored to the hand – in other words, we are chained to money and the economy.

Stanza 7 and 8:

But perhaps also she wants the sun to shine thought these buildings too. Sometimes governments can be corrupt or choose to wage war for financial gain. However, they may declare that the war is to free others from a tyrant, like the Iraq war in 2003. America and the United Kingdom wanted to depose Suddan Hussain, a dictator, who allegedly had weapons of mass destruction. However, these weapons were never located and some critics said that the invasion was motivated by financial again as Iraq hosted some quite lucrative oil fields, which the governments could profit from. This links to a second definition of ‘monoliths’, which defines them as ‘impersonal statures. In this way, Dharker could be referring to the ugliness of these buildings. Rather than this being an aesthetic ugliness, it could refer to the ugliness within the buildings – just like the hidden immoral reasons for waging way I have just mentioned. The buildings may paint an outward image of success but Dharker might be suggesting this is a façade. This is arguably why she wants ‘daylight’ to expose the truth within these buildings. Light in this way acts as a metaphor for truth and transparency so you and I know exactly how the government are conducting their business. Think, for example, about the current coronavirus pandemic. It is only now the government have declared a blank cheque of the NHS; before, this money was never available, yet we have been believed to think that this is because it just wasn’t possible…