Tissue

• 'Paper that lets the light/shine through,'

  It is thin, almost transparent paper that is most important to the speaker; when you may initially think of a single sheet of A4, the speaker opens your eyes to a whole different way of looking at paper.
• 'this/is what could alter things.'

  • Structure: Immediately, the speaker lets us know that paper is important to them and that the simplicity in paper could change the way the world works.
  • The speaker may not be satisfied with the way the world is at the moment.
• 'Paper thinned by age or touching,/the kind you find in well-used books,'

  Enjambment: The break in the line could symbolise the fragility of the paper, but it also highlights the beauty in just that: the more delicate the paper, the more important.
• 'the back of the Koran,'

  Religious Connotations: broadens the importance of paper. The speaker seems to be hinting that people need religion.
• where a hand/has written in the names and histories,/ who was born to whom,/the height and weight, who/died where and how,'

  • Noun 'book': juxtaposes the idea of modern society the age of technology and the machine era; the speaker sees significance in tactility.
  • basic as paper; this this a plea for going back to a simpler time. Paper is used to record family history – whole lives can be summed up by marks on a paper.
• 'on which sepia date,/pages smoothed and stroked and turned'

  Verbs: Connotes gentleness and being treated with tenderness and compassion. Perhaps this is what the speaker feels the world needs more of.
• 'transparent with attention.'

  • Almost oxymoronic: After so much usage, the paper has lost its thickness or its original quality, however this seems to be something that the speaker appreciates.
  • The speaker seems to prefer transparency over something that is opaque and obscure. This echoes the sentiment expressed in the second stanza.
• 'If buildings were paper, I might feel their'

  Sentences: The speaker seems to reject anything that isn’t natural or pure and fantasises about a world where paper has a bigger influence.
• 'drift, see how easily/they fall away on a sigh, a shift/in the direction of the wind.'

  • The speaker seems to be showing the buildings how fluid and flexible they could be if they were more like paper.
  • It also seems as if the speaker shuns the idea of rigidity and anything with a fixed nature; she longs for the versatility she sees in paper.
  • Rhyming of “shift” and “drift” plays on the idea of movement – they appear in different places on the line as if they have been blown by the wind.
• 'Maps too. The sun shines/ through their borderlines,'

  • Nature Imagery: The speaker advocates nature’s input as it makes things more transparent.
  • Whereas maps get us to our destination through set courses, the sunlight illuminating it makes it become more animated and the freedom is emphasised.
  • Furthermore, the sun is a powerful, permanent force, whereas borders are just temporary marks on a paper (juxtaposition).
• 'Fine slips from grocery shops'

  • There is a reluctance to label the “fine slips” as receipts that shows how the speaker disapproves of the way that paper has been distorted by unnatural influences.
  • Groceries represent larger scale socio economics; connotes our reliance on money and material wealth.
• 'that say how much was sold/ and what was paid by credit/ card might fly our lives like paper kites.'

  • Simile: suggests at how our lives can be controlled by money.
  • The speaker hints at the easy manipulation (as like a kite) that paper can have, if used in the wrong way.
  • On another level, it perhaps portrays that if we changed our approach to material ownership we would regain a childhood peace of mind (kites).
• 'An architect could use all this,'

  • Reminder of the previous stanza where the speaker wanted buildings to change.
  • Shows that she is committed to this dream and has thought about the possibilities.
• 'place layer over layer, luminous script over numbers over line,'

  The work of the poet mirrors the work of the architect – the poet builds layers of word and meanings, where an architect designs physical structures, The repetition of ‘over’ reinforces this idea of layers.
• 'and never wish to build again with brick// or block'

  • Here, the speaker feels that if people used paper in the way that she envisioned, they too would see the benefits and reject other materials like she has.
  • The consonance of “brick” and “block” emphasises the soliditity of the objects.
• 'but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths,'

  Nature Imagery: Again, the speaker reinforces the idea that nature and paper go hand in hand, whereas other, more solid structures are restrictive and obstructive (juxtaposition echoed in lines 17 & 18)
• 'through the shapes that pride can make,'

  Criticism of human pride: we create big, imposing buildings that are ultimately unimportant.
• 'find a way to trace a grand design // with living tissue,'

  Invest in people instead of things; possible reference to Channel 4 programme.

  There is a shift from talking about paper to talking about humans – a construction more complex and more ‘grand’ than any man-made building.
• 'raise a structure never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked'

  Find beauty in things that decay or break, like the human body. Human life is only temporary, but the repetition of line 11 reminds us that we are all part of a complex, lasting family history.