Imtiaz Dharker, ‘These are the Times We Live in’

Imtiaz Dharker, ‘These are the Times We Live in’ – Comprehensive Study Notes

Hello, Future Literature Experts! Get ready to dive into Imtiaz Dharker’s powerful poem, ‘These are the Times We Live in’. Prescribed in Songs of Ourselves Volume 2, Part 3, this poem explores modern surveillance, border control, identity, and the suspicion directed at travellers in a post-9/11 world. Let's break down its key themes, narrative, and linguistic devices to get you exam-ready!

The poem uses concrete, tense narrative details combined with surreal imagery to depict the experience of an individual undergoing intense airport security scrutiny.

1. About the Poet and Context (Setting the Scene)

To fully appreciate the poem, we need to understand the poet’s perspective and context:

• The Poet: Imtiaz Dharker (born 1954 in Lahore, Pakistan) is an acclaimed contemporary poet, artist, and documentary filmmaker. Her work frequently investigates themes of home, displacement, borders, and identity.
• Multicultural Background: Having grown up in Glasgow, Scotland, and lived and worked in India and the UK, Dharker draws upon a rich, cross-cultural experience of crossing borders and navigating questions of belonging.
• Socio-Political Context: The poem reflects heightened global paranoia, border security, racial profiling, and institutional suspicion in contemporary travel culture, particularly post-9/11.

2. Summary and Content (AO1: What is the Poem Saying?)

The poem follows a traveller handing over their identity documents to an immigration officer at border control, charting the uncomfortable, dehumanizing process of inspection.

Key Moments and Narrative Progression:

• The Encounter at Border Control: The poem opens with a direct second-person address: “You hand over your passport.” The officer immediately looks at the traveler’s face and starts “reading you backwards from the last page.”
• Scrutiny and Paranoia: The officer examines every stamp, flight, and record, viewing ordinary human changes (like moving house or an altered photograph) through a lens of deep suspicion.
• Targeted Details: The officer fixates on details such as a name containing a “Z”, reflecting how names, heritage, and identity become grounds for suspicion under state surveillance.
• Surreal Dehumanisation: The speaker describes how physical identity is reduced and manipulated by official scrutiny—suggesting the traveler’s face might come apart or that one shrinks to fit into the passport book itself.
• The Refrains of Resignation: The official justifications—“given the times we live in” and “It’s a sign of the times we live in”—are used to normalise invasive scrutiny and xenophobia.

Key Takeaway: On a literal level, the poem portrays an airport border interrogation, highlighting how fear, prejudice, and modern security protocols erode individuality and human dignity.

3. Key Themes and Ideas (AO2: The Deeper Meaning)

A. Surveillance, Paranoia, and Institutional Control

The border official represents the power of the state over the individual. Every innocent trace of a person's history is scrutinised as potential deception.

• Reading the passport “backwards” suggests an inversion of normal human trust, where the starting point is presumption of guilt.
• The official's dismissive rhetorical phrase—“But what do you expect?”—underlines how easily civil liberties and personal dignity are dismissed under the banner of security.

B. Identity and Reduction of Self

Dharker examines how physical and cultural identities are simplified, categorised, and alienated by bureaucratic systems.

• The scrutiny over a name with a “Z” highlights xenophobic profiling and othering.
• The traveller’s physical presence is reduced to stamps, dates, and paper, symbolising how bureaucratic processes dehumanise living people.

C. The 'Times We Live In' as an Excuse for Intolerance

The repetition of phrases like “a sign of the times we live in” critiques the way contemporary society excuses discrimination and suspicion as necessary precautions.

4. Structure, Form, and Language (AO3: Writer's Methods)

A. Structure and Form

• Second-Person Perspective (“You”): Dharker addresses the reader directly (“You hand over your passport”), placing the reader directly into the vulnerable, uneasy position of the traveller.
• Free Verse and Irregular Lineation: The lack of a rigid metre mirrors the unpredictable, unsettling atmosphere of an interrogation.
• Enjambment: Sentences run over line breaks to build tension and momentum, reflecting the officer's relentless, unpausing scrutiny.
• Occasional Rhyme: Sporadic rhyming lines punctuate the poem, often providing sharp, ironic emphasis on key observations.

B. Poetic Language and Imagery

• Metaphor of Reading Backwards: Deconstructing a person’s identity and past in reverse conveys a methodical, suspicious dissection of a human life.
• Surreal and Physical Imagery: Descriptions of faces shifting, birthmarks moving, and the traveler shrinking to the dimensions of a passport book effectively dramatise the psychological pressure and alienation of being profiled.
• Rhetorical Question: The question “But what do you expect?” captures the state's cynical, shrug-of-the-shoulders attitude toward stripping away privacy.

5. Expressing a Personal Response and Exam Tips (AO4)

How to approach an exam question:

• Analyze the Second-Person Address: Explain how Dharker’s use of “You” creates empathy and makes the experience of surveillance universally relatable.
• Trace the Shift from Reality to Surrealism: Discuss how the realistic airport setting expands into surreal descriptions of shrinking and identity distortion to convey inner anxiety.
• Evaluate Tone: Note the tension between the speaker's quiet vulnerability and the cold, bureaucratic indifference of the official.

Example Personal Response Starter:
“Dharker’s use of the second-person pronoun ‘you’ immediately implicates the reader in the vulnerability of border control. By portraying the official reading the passport ‘backwards’, Dharker effectively conveys how easily innocent human history is transformed into evidence of suspicion in the modern world.”

Key Takeaway for Exams: Always link the technical choices (such as the second-person point of view, surreal imagery, and refrain) to Dharker’s central message about prejudice, security paranoia, and the loss of individual identity.