How to write the PERFECT essay on TISSUE (GCSE Model Answer) 😃
Terrified if this poem comes up in Power & Conflict? Don't worry, I've got you! 🧻
TISSUE by Imtiaz Dharker is by far the most HATED poem in Power & Conflict Poetry. Not only do students HATE it, some teachers hate it so much, they don’t even teach it! Even if it’s part of the anthology that students must learn..
In my latest YouTube video, I go over what this poem means and how to write the PERFECT GCSE essay on “Tissue” if it comes up:
It’s a 12 minute video. If you can’t be bothered watch it, here’s your model essay plan, plus quotes and context for this poem. Read it, understand it and use it (if it comes up).
✨PS: I’m running POWER & CONFLICT POEMS Last Minute Revision Class on Thursday (8 May) at 5pm - sign up here: https://www.firstratetutors.com/a/2148087404/8QidKcPa
What if Tissue doesn’t come up?
You can STILL use it as 98% of students across the country WON’T meaning your Poetry essay will INSTANTLY stand out to examiners and anything that stands out instantly hits Grade 7, 8 and 9 category for examiners. It’s a 🏅WIN-WIN!🏅
🧻 TISSUE: GCSE MODEL ANSWER 🧻
1️⃣ PARAGRAPH 1: START WITH LANGUAGE
The poem uses PAPER as an extended metaphor to highlight how everything in this world is temporary: religion, buildings, money, countries - even if it all seems so solid and like it will last forever (much like when we look at paper, it is present, visible, it stores so much) it will not last forever. The world around us looks so solid but it is temporary, transient and CONFLICT happens when we try and hold too tight to what must change and we also arrogantly believe as humans that everything will stay the same.
EVIDENCE:
“the shapes that pride can make” (symbolic of human arrogance)
“Buildings were paper… see how easily they fall away” (metaphor)
2️⃣ PARAGRAPH 2: ADD FORM & CONTEXT
Although everything around us seems to endure forever, it’s ironically never meant to last and will ultimately be destroyed eventually. Paper - tissue - something so tactile, rigid and it stores so much memory, creates religion in holy texts, nationalities on maps, history of people and civilisations on in books - this is transient (short lived) and will come to an end. The poem mentions religion and countries - two key areas of MAJOR CONFLICT to show how misguided humans are in fighting for things that are transient:
EVIDENCE:
“the back of the Koran,” (caesura / quatrain)
“Maps too.” (quatrain)
CONTEXT: Dharker published this poem in a collection called “The Terrorist at My Table” - in 2006 where there was heightened Islamophobia that had been influenced by September 11 attacks in 2001 (she was influenced by this)
3️⃣ PARAGRAPH 3: END WITH STRUCTURE
The poem looks at conflict in terms of destruction and politics, it hints that we make our own conflict by holding on too tight to power and control, trying to make things PERMANENT when everything we create as humans is TEMPORARY and ultimately as FRAGILE as Tissue. The poem invites us to let go of the belief that all we create will last forever as this will only create suffering and war.
EVIDENCE:
“raise a structure / never meant to last, of paper smoothed and stroked and thinned” (enjambment and tricolon)
CONTEXT: Reference to the destruction of the World Trade Centre buildings in 9/11 and even in earlier history – the fall of the Berlin wall
✨PS: If you’re stressing about your English Literature exams - on 5-9 May I’ll run Literature Revision Classes to BOOST your grades so you go into your exams feeling CONFIDENT & READY: https://www.firstratetutors.com/a/2148087404/8QidKcPa