War Photographer & Tissue

This lesson pairs two poems by female poets that explore power and conflict through intellectual, reflective lenses. Duffy's War Photographer examines the moral complexity of documenting suffering, while Dharker's Tissue uses the fragile image of paper to question the structures of power that human beings construct. Both poems step back from the battlefield to consider conflict from a wider perspective.

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War Photographer — Carol Ann Duffy (1985)

Context

Fact	Detail
Poet	Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955)
Role	Poet Laureate from 2009 to 2019
Inspiration	Duffy's friendship with war photographers, particularly Don McCullin and Philip Jones Griffiths
Theme	The ethics of photographing suffering; the gap between conflict zones and comfortable Western life
Form	Four regular sestets (6-line stanzas) with a loose rhyme scheme

Duffy was inspired by the real experiences of war photographers who risk their lives to document conflict, only to find that the public quickly forgets the images. The poem explores a profound ethical tension: is photographing suffering a way of bearing witness, or is it a form of exploitation? And what does it say about us that we look at these images over our Sunday supplements, then turn the page?

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Content Summary

A war photographer returns to his darkroom in "rural England." As he develops his photographs, the images of suffering come back to him — a man dying, cries of a dead man's wife. He thinks about the gap between the war zones and the comfortable, ordered life of England. The final stanza reveals that the newspaper editor will select a few images, readers will feel momentary pity, then move on. The photographer picks up his camera and heads to the next war.

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Key Quotes

Quote	Technique	Analysis
"In his darkroom he is finally alone"	Setting / isolation	The darkroom is both literal and metaphorical — a place of darkness where painful truths are revealed. "Finally alone" suggests he needs solitude to process what he has witnessed.
"spools of suffering set out in ordered rows"	Sibilance / juxtaposition	The 's' sounds are soft, almost reverent. "Ordered rows" contrasts with the chaos of war — the photographer imposes order on suffering. Also evokes rows of graves.
"as though this were a church and he / a priest preparing to intone a Mass"	Simile / religious imagery	Developing photographs becomes a sacred ritual. The photographer is a "priest" whose duty is to bear witness — to make suffering visible.
"Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh"	List / proper nouns	Three conflict zones condensed into three words. The blunt listing suggests that atrocities blur together — there are so many that individual places lose their distinctiveness.
"All flesh is grass"	Biblical allusion	From Isaiah 40:6 — human life is fragile and temporary. The photographer understands mortality in a way most people do not.
"a half-formed ghost"	Metaphor	As the photograph develops, the image emerges like a ghost — the dead seem to materialise before him.
"a stranger's features / faintly start to twist before his eyes"	Imagery	The developing photograph becomes a face contorted in agony. The image is "twisting" — it will not stay still; the suffering is alive.
"The reader's eyeballs prick / with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers"	Juxtaposition / bathos	Momentary pity is sandwiched between domestic comforts. The suffering that cost lives is reduced to a brief emotional twinge between bath time and beer.
"they do not care"	Short declarative	Blunt, devastating, final. The public's indifference is the poem's ultimate condemnation.

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Language Analysis

Religious register: "Church," "priest," "Mass," "All flesh is grass" — the language of religion elevates the photographer's work to a moral and spiritual act. Developing photographs is presented as a solemn duty, not merely a job.

Contrast: The poem is built on contrasts: war zones vs rural England; suffering vs Sunday supplements; the photographer's deep engagement vs the reader's shallow pity. These contrasts are the poem's structural and thematic spine.

Ambiguity of "they do not care": Who are "they"? The public? The newspaper editors? Both? The ambiguity widens the accusation — the entire system of consuming and discarding images of suffering is indicted.

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Form and Structure

Feature	Detail	Effect
Four sestets	Regular 6-line stanzas	The orderly structure mirrors the photographer's methodical work — imposing order on chaos
Rhyme scheme	Loose — ABBCDD or near-rhymes	The imperfect rhymes suggest things almost but not quite fitting — like the gap between image and reality
Present tense	Throughout	The reader accompanies the photographer in real time — the suffering is happening now
Final stanza shift	Moves from the photographer to the public	The accusation shifts outward — from individual guilt to collective indifference
Circular structure	He returns to another war zone at the end	The cycle of suffering, documentation, and public indifference continues endlessly

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Tissue — Imtiaz Dharker (2006)

Context

Fact	Detail
Poet	Imtiaz Dharker (b. 1954)
Background	Born in Pakistan, raised in Glasgow, lives between India, London, and Wales
Themes	Identity, borders, faith, the human desire to build and control
Collection	The terrorist at my table (2006)
Form	Ten quatrains plus a single final line

Dharker writes from a position of cultural multiplicity — her work engages with borders (national, religious, personal) and questions the structures that human beings create to organise and control life. Tissue uses paper as an extended metaphor for the fragile, temporary nature of all human constructions — from holy books to maps to receipts. The poem ultimately argues that human life itself is more important than any of the structures we build around it.

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Content Summary

The poem considers different types of paper: the thin pages of the Quran, recording names and births; maps that chart borders; receipts that track commerce. All of these are fragile — paper can be "turned to the light" and seen through. The poem argues that if buildings were made of paper, they could be "let through" by light. The final line — "turned into your skin" — brings the metaphor home: human life, fragile as tissue, is the most important thing of all.

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Key Quotes

Quote	Technique	Analysis
"Paper that lets the light / shine through"	Imagery / symbolism	Paper is transparent, fragile — and beautiful for it. Light represents truth, clarity, understanding.
"the kind you find in the back of the Koran"	Cultural reference	The thin pages of holy books — sacred but fragile. Even the word of God is written on something that can tear.
"recording names and histories"	Listing	Paper preserves identity and memory — but it is temporary.
"Maps too. The borderlines, / the marking out of territories"	Enjambment / imagery	Borders are human constructions drawn on paper — they are not natural or permanent.
"Fine slips from grocery shops"	Mundane imagery	Even financial transactions — the foundations of capitalism — are recorded on flimsy paper. Commerce is as fragile as everything else.
"might fly our lives like paper kites"	Simile	Life becomes something light, free, airborne — but also fragile and at the mercy of the wind.
"turned into your skin"	Direct address / metaphor	The final, devastating shift. "Your skin" is the ultimate tissue — human life is the most fragile and precious paper of all. The direct address ("your") makes it personal.

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Language Analysis

Extended metaphor: The entire poem is an extended metaphor — paper represents all human structures (religion, borders, commerce, architecture). By choosing something as fragile as paper, Dharker argues that everything humans build is temporary.