Bloodaxe Books | Imtiaz Dharker: Shadow Reader (at Newcastle Poetry Festival 2024) @BloodaxeBooks | Uploaded August 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Imtiaz Dharker read poems from her seventh Bloodaxe collection Shadow Reader, published in May 2024, at Newcastle Poetry Festival.
Shadow Reader (bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/shadow-reader-1348) is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. The poems bind this looming curse to the occupation of countries, the earth and its creatures, those who own the story and those who redirect it through art or artifice. ‘Does the warp look back at the one who is weaving and say, This is not how I remember it…?’ Imtiaz Dharker’s collection pays attention to wilful erasures, exclusions and also to places of sanctuary. This is poetry as music, as momentum, as the texture and taste of languages, joyously sensuous and rich in images. While it acknowledges the everyday and its shadows, it is also an irreverent, playful celebration of life.
Imtiaz Dharker read poems from her seventh Bloodaxe collection Shadow Reader, published in May 2024, at Newcastle Poetry Festival.
Shadow Reader (bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/shadow-reader-1348) is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. The poems bind this looming curse to the occupation of countries, the earth and its creatures, those who own the story and those who redirect it through art or artifice. ‘Does the warp look back at the one who is weaving and say, This is not how I remember it…?’ Imtiaz Dharker’s collection pays attention to wilful erasures, exclusions and also to places of sanctuary. This is poetry as music, as momentum, as the texture and taste of languages, joyously sensuous and rich in images. While it acknowledges the everyday and its shadows, it is also an irreverent, playful celebration of life.
