Tag Archives: Imtiaz Dharker

Imtiaz Dharker: A Spire Starts with Mud

After listening to a BBC interview with Imtiaz Dharker in February, I ordered her latest book. The poet read several poems from Leaving Fingerprints, including “S[ire.” I love how it builds a metaphor for poetry and breath itself. Dharker describes herself as a “cultural mongrel” – “a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, brought up in a Lahori household in Glasgow.” Now she lives in London and Mumbai. In the interview she says that religion is “a misuse of the name of God” and poetry is a moment “when everything else falls away.” Continue reading






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Imtiaz Dharker’s Blessing: “Voice Of A Kindly God”

The voice of Imtiaz Dharker, lyrical, precise and earthy, came to me between sleep and waking. That’s the liminal state in which I listen to the BBC at three in the morning. The poet was being interviewd on a BBC program called Heart and Soul. Dharker describes herself as a “cultural mongrel” – “a Scottish Muslim Calvinist, brought up in a Lahori household in Glasgow.” Now she lives in London and Mumbai. In the interview she says that religion is “a misuse of the name of God” and poetry is a moment “when everything else falls away” [listen now]. Dharker recites poems from her latest book, Leaving Fingerprints (including “Spire” and xxx) as well as “Blessing” (which has been required reading in U.K. schools for over a decade ).






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