Tissue

• BIG IDEA

  Troubled world - destruction, war, terrorism - nothing is meant to last BUT the world would be a better place if there was greater transparency as you could build bridges - religion.
• “Paper that lets the light shine through…” - transparency - honesty / positive communication. “..this is what could alter things.” - improve things
• Paper = identity - religion, education, birth certificates, death certificates.
• “transparent with attention” - passed down to different generations
• “If buildings were paper,I might..” - if buildings were not so expensive / meaningful, there would be less conflict.
• “Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines” - Maps / borders create division (Russia / Ukraine , Israel / Gaza). Transparency and light - less conflict and less division in the world.
• “might fly our lives like paper kites.” - extent to which paper controls our lives - so our whole lives operates around it and yet, like a ‘kite’, its fragile; it can be easily destroyed. Sense that we are controlled by paper which is delicate - not built to last.
• “An architect could use all this” - Architect could create light and life through paper (not bricks).
• “but let the daylight break through capitals and monoliths” - Don’t attach too much importance to buildings - they create division (9/11). Instead let light / transparency into our world.
• “with living tissue…” - skin, humans. The architect that creates the “grand design’ / with living tissue” could be a reference to g-d because g-d creates humans.
• “paper kites” - “never meant to last”. Paper = skin tissue. Things aren’t meant to last - let go of restrictions and divisions e.g buildings, status, money.
• Transparency = honesty / avoiding conflict through communication. If the architect is g-d, g-d creates wonderful human beings yet constructs things that divide us. What if there was only transparency? - better place?
• STRUCTURE

  Free verse - irregular, lots of different ideas which makes it unpredictable. Reflected in the unstructured set up of the poem.

  Motif of transparency and modal verbs - musing / thinking things through (could, might, should).
• The poet muses on the fragility of human existence, sparked by an examination of a tissue paper. The poet emphasises the thinness and fragility of paper but the thinner the paper, the more powerful it seems to be. The poem could also be viewed as focusing upon conflict in terms of destruction and politics.
• Feelings and attitudes

  Control- the poem mentions things that control or govern human life - there are references to money, religion, nature, pride and governments (‘capitals’).

  Freedom - the speaker imagines a world that breaks free of some of these restrictions, where human constructions lack permanency their importance
• THEMES

  Fragility and power - the poet suggests that paper, which is a fragile tissue, has the power to alter and control our existence. Tissue paper alters our view of things; paper is used to record powerful, even sacred, knowledge and information. This leads the poet to speculate that buildings are drawn on thin architect paper; landmarks and geographical features become see-through when they are printed on maps; shop receipts have the power to control our lives, though they are worthless.
• The poem explores the theme of the power of humans, where an architect creates living flesh out of various types of paper listed earlier in the poem to resemble human skin
• The architect in the poem creates a grand design using layers of paper to create something living and human, suggesting that letting light through, like tissue paper does, allows us to see things differently and be free to live
• The poet encourages readers to contemplate the impermanence of things we perceive as permanent, likening them to human tissue which is also impermanent
• COMPARE

  ’Checking out me history‘ - heritage, conflict with culture

  ‘The emigree’ - heritage, resolving boundaries between culture and nations

  ’London’ - humanity creating it’s own boundaries and internal conflict
• KEY QUOTES

  “Paper that lets the light / shine through, this / is what could alter things“

  ”The sun shines through / their borderlines”

  ”transparent”

  ”Might fly our lives like paper kites”

  ”An architect could use all this”