Imtiaz Dharker will be reading in Ware (8 Nov), Aldeburgh (9 Nov) and at Push The Boat Out in Edinburgh (24 Nov). Her joint online launch for Shadow Reader is on YouTube.
Imtiaz Dharker BBC Radio interviews & reviews for Shadow Reader
Interviews on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions, Radio 4's Saturday Live, & Desert Island Discs (rebroadcast R4 Xtra) plus World Service's Arts Hour; reviews in Sunday...
When I was twenty-five
the Shadow Reader said
I would live to a ripe old age.
He licked his finger, flicked a page
and told me the year of my death.
That year has arrived.
*
Shadow Reader
Midday, and we are climbing the stairs
from Perfect Electronix and Electric Dreamz
to the second floor in one of those buildings
that had a life before it was painted pistachio
green, blistered by time and salt off the sea.
Bunches of wires swagger up the stairwell,
wagging a finger, ready to coil and drag
me up if I falter. I don’t want to know
my future. All I want is to turn around
and walk away down Chowpatty beach,
along the shore where the coconut sellers
and paper windmills are, but these are early days.
when I still give in to other people’s whims,
so here I am standing at a spidered door,
waiting to meet the Shadow Reader.
*
Where you belong
You can squat in this room if you don’t say a word,
you can stay in this town if you pay for a room,
you can go on this train if it’s off-peak,
you can speak your mind if you change your look,
you can have your chance if you don’t expect luck,
you can be in the group if you get enough likes,
you can live with family if you toe the line,
you can keep your children if we countersign,
you can enter this church if you quote the book,
you can open the book if you close your mind,
you can save our time if you follow the rules,
you can play a role if you buy the mask,
you can take on the task if no one else wants it,
you can ask the question if you never offend,
you can belong but only if you don’t stay too long,
you can end it now or start over again,
you can follow the signs but never turn back,
you can see you have run out of time and years,
you can leave in tears or go with a laugh,
you can take your clothes but leave your shoes and
your attitude behind, it does you no favours, and
you can do us a favour, don’t change your mind.
*
Back
When the person holding your passport says, You’ll have to go back where you came from,
you are four again, crossing the bridge at Jamaica
Street, the River Clyde rolling under your feet
away to the sea where ships set sail;
and when the woman in the queue mutters This is not where you belong, you think of
the way light plays hide-and-seek
over the hills on the Sunday morning ride
up the Campsie Fells;
and when the man outside the pub looks you up
and down and says, Go back to your country,
you know you could squash the stoater,
if you could be bothered, with Go back
to yer cave and bile yer heid, ye dolly walloper!
and even if you’re wired to the moon,
that’s when your heart goes home and you
coorie doon, all of Glasgow shining in your window,
because this is where you came from,
the place that will always have you back.
*
For the girl whose hair escaped
The things that can happen
in the back of the van.
The culprit can be just sitting there
and out of nowhere the jaw
comes apart and the teeth
are lying on the floor.
Amazing, if you think
about it. Next thing you know
she is lying against the door
with cracked ribs, the air
squeezed out of her lungs.
It’s a wonder, the way
she picks up her body, all
the broken bones, climbs
to the top of the precinct roof
and throws herself off.
You wouldn’t believe it
but here it is in the Report,
in black and white
white as white
as the light she escapes to,
black as black
as her rampant hair.
Contents List
11 In the Year of My Death
13 Out of the rose garden
14 Story
15 (But the roses are savages)
17 The map of this country is made of scars
19 Face to face
21 Witness
23 The Show
24 They brought glass beads
26 Boy with a Turban
27 Letters home
29 Did anyone say what happened to the girl?
31 Loom
33 The weaver makes a pitch
35 (This is not a prayer mat)
36 Shadow Reader
37 The weaver tells the spell
41 Demons Rule
43 What goes of your father?
44 Fly
47 I am Not Alone
49 The Shadow Reader Is Measuring
50 Saying No
51 Pink
52 Chori
54 Where you belong
55 What it grows into
56 Back
57 Redeem
59 (When you hear the wind)
60 The welcome
62 The key
63 Reader
64 The piece
66 For the Minicab Driver Who Looked as if He Needed Feeding
67 For the Woman Who Will Bring Biryani Next Time
68 For the Girl on the Elizabeth Line
69 For the Woman Who Changed Back to a Snake
70 Cross
71 So How Does This Work? I ask
73 (A door full of light)
74 Swiping Left on Larkin
76 Let’s Meet in the Place Called Jazz
77 In Which I Am Ghosted by William Blake
79 I Find Faiz Blowing on His Saucer of Tea
81 Away
83 There are no words
84 Next
85 For the girl whose hair escaped
87 What it is like
88 What you can buy with a bangle
89 Naa Ja
90 However
93 It was the fault of the clothes
94 (Only you can tell)
95 They arrive
96 Fold
98 They leave
99 As they go
100 (Take one step forward)
103 They are walking
105 Night Walk with Ghosts, Smithfield
106 Night Walk with Dancing Bones
107 Night Walk by the Canal
108 Night Walk with Lit Windows
110 Night Walk with Fox
111 Night Walk with Blackbird
113 Night Walk with Voices
115 Cranes lean in
116 Seen from a drone, Delhi
118 Seen from a drone, Mumbai
120 Seen from a drone
121 On mute
122 One says this, another says that
123 X
124 (Life chases your feet)
125 Sweeping
127 Writing the Will
129 She Is Trying On the Pre-loved Shoes
130 What Bunny-Auntie Says to Bobby-Uncle
131 She Has an Off-day
132 Bobby Saves Nature to the Cloud
133 Auntie Death Says She Slays
134 Bubbles Experiences a Moment of Dread
135 She Contemplates Her Death
136 Donor
137 Night Visitors
138 The Host
141 The Guest
143 With empty hands
144 You write a window
145 Go to the child
147 (This is the embrace)
148 You are
150 We are holding
151 But the radiance
153 (We turn our faces up)
154 Your Session Has Been Terminated
155 Everywhere the angels
156 I Walk in the Shadow