Poetry Tissue Flashcards
(4 cards)
‘pages smoothed and stroked and turned ‘
Gentle verbs ‘smooth’, ‘stroked’ and ‘turned’ suggest that the pages are treated with respect and affection.
It implies that paper provides us with a sense of nostalgia and comfort as it shows the history of our lives in photos, letters and other documents.
This phrasing is repeated near end of poem to highlight how people will not physically live forever, but their DNA will last for eternity in their descendants. It reminds us that we are all part of a complex, lasting family history, linking to ideas of heritage and identity
‘Maps too. The sun shines through/’
‘Maps too. The sun shines through’
The use of the caesura, emphasises the shortness of the structure, reflecting the fixed nature of maps and borders. In this case, perhaps paper create division rather than freedom in the same way maps and borders do.
‘maps too’-metaphor=This could be a metaphor to represent human skin and the marks and veins we gain over life which metaphorically linking to our journey in life – links to how a map is used to plan out a journey.
Arguably, she could also be referring to how maps/borders limit us and we feel confined by where we are from. Perhaps she wants to show that where you live/travel to can help define who you are as a person
The use of enjambment suggests that the sun is a strong force, more permanent than borders, which shift with time, history and politics. This is accentuated by the long ‘s’ sound.
Symbolically, light allows people to see and break through restrictions and boundaries
‘credit card/might fly our lives like paper kites. ‘
It’s interesting that Dharker refers to a credit card rather than a debit card. A credit card is one where we are borrowing money to purchase items to perhaps exemplify that we live in a materialistic society where we put ourselves in a precarious position by spending outside of our means. Arguably, the message here is that we are too obsessed with material possessions and wealth rather than those who we share ‘living tissue’ with who will eventually be lost to the ‘grand design’.
The simile has been used to depict the way in which money directs ‘our lives’. The playful image – one we would associate with childhood – conveys the notion that adulthood, and our desire for material possessions, corrupts us. Here the
noun ‘kites’ has links to innocence and freedom, like we would experience as a child, juxtaposing the rigid control finances have over us. It also suggests something difficult to control to evoke how we are at the mercy of our finances. The message here being that money ‘might’ be able to do this but we can break that control and focus on spending time with loved ones
structure/form/context
Uses unrhymed, irregular quatrains, which perhaps represents the irregularity of life and perhaps its fragility
The final stanza is one line in length demonstrating the connection between paper and skin
Free verse – mirror fluttering paper?
Use of enjambment – links to the delicate nature of paper and lives.
