“THESE ARE THE TIMES WE LIVE IN”
BY IMTIAZ DHARKER
Presented by Falak Noreen & Khadija
Tayyaba
IMTIAZ DHAKER
 Imtiaz Dharker is a Scottish Muslim, poet, artist and
documentary film-maker.
 She currently has 5 published books of poetry.
 At the time she wrote this poem, people of other races
and cultures, were looked at with suspicion and distrust,
especially if you had a name that was thought of as
"unusual".
 The main themes of her poetry include home, freedom,
journeys, geographical and cultural displacement,
communal conflict and gender politics.
POETIC DEVICES
 It is a free verse poem.
 “Shrink to the size of the book in his hand” This is a
metaphor.
 “There is a repetition of ‘the times we live in'”
 The language used is pretty much straightforward.
 Theme Shows how immigration protocol is normalized.
IMAGERY
 ‘Reading you backwards’
 ‘They missed out on your heart’
SYMBOLISM
The Passport
CRITICAL ANALYSIS
 The title suggests a regular theme which
explores the
concept of modern society and ethnicities and races that
have grown in modern age.
 She is in some sort of immigration office or
international place where she is traveling to or from, she
hands the man her passport and he seems very skeptical
of her. She could be hurt by the distrust but she realizes
that his reaction is that of everyone else’s.
CONTINUE..
The man is inspecting her passport and scanning over it,
looking at her “weird” name, trying to figure her out from a
few pieces of paper. She begins to poke fun at their efforts
to try and change people like her, people with different
cultures and nationalities. But at the end, she reveals the
hurt that is left behind, because after all the poking and
changing, part of her feels missing and not like herself
anymore
CONTINUE…
 ‘…Laughing’ could be used symbolically to refer to the
outrageousness of how officers merely assume motives
of immigrants or foreigners when they are entering a
country.
CONTINUE…
Dharker concisely explains the idea of how a person is no
longer understood for his true character or qualities, but
rather for their background, name and age.
CONTINUE..
A name which contains a ‘…Z’ could be said to be easily
identifiable as foreign, as statistically more people have
names with ‘Z’ from Asian countries. Therefore, it could
said that the presence of the letter in a name could hint of a
foreign background.
SPEAKER OF THE POEM
Because this poem was written from an actual experience
the poet had, I believe the speaker is her addressing
someone who would be in the same situation as her.