Tissue

• "Maps too. The sun shines through their borderlines.": Tissue


  • "Sun" - Connotes hope, and giving worth and value to paper even though it can easily be broken, showing the fragility of power in society.
  • "Borderlines" - Creates a manmade restriction to control society and their actions, even though nature is more powerful than man.
• "What was paid by credit cards/ might fly our lives like paper kites.": Tissue


  • Simile.
  • "Fly" - Manipulative, exciting and controlling, Creating a sense of freedom and enjoyment.
  • "Kites" - Being controlled by someone, meaning you cannot escape, and you are reduced to a commodity.
• "Turned into your skin.": Tissue


  • "Turned" - Metaphor - Shows how all of this 'paper' defines us, which should determine our value.
  • "Skin" - Talking about the tissue in our skin or physical tissue, connoting how the structure of it comes from nature either way.
• Tissue - Form:

  • Free verse - Shows the loss of control and identity to oppressive paper.
  • Enjambment - Layers of lines connotes how there is no escape from the oppression. Shows how the speaker is attempting to reflect the poet's desire for freedom, shows the lack of control humans have compared to nature.
• Tissue - Language:

  • "Shine through" "Fine" "Transparent" - Lexical field of fragility - Just like the power man has over nature and society.
  • Paper is personified to be powerful because of all the important information it has, but can be broken easily.
• Tissue - Structure:

  • Last line "Turned into your skin" - The use of direct address shows how we are responsible for making and breaking this power.
• Tissue - Themes:

  • Instability of power.
  • Power of man.
  • Power of nature.
  • Power of society.
  • Fragility of power.