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Blessing Poem
Blessing Poem
Context
Imtiaz Dharker lives in India, in the city of Bombay. During the dry season,
the temperature can reach 40 degrees. The poem is set in a vast area of
temporary accommodation called Dharavi, on the outskirts of Bombay, where
millions of migrants have gathered from other parts of India. Because it is
not an official living area, there is always a shortage of water.
In an interview, the poet says: 'But when a pipe bursts, when a water tanker
goes past, there's always a little child running behind the water tanker
getting the bits of drips and it's like money, it's like currency. In a hot
country in that kind of climate, it's like a gift. And the children may have
been brought up in the city and grown up as migrants, but the mothers will
probably remember in the village they've
come from they would have to walk miles
with pots to get to a well, to the closest
water source. So it really is very precious.
When the water comes, it's like a god.'
Structure
Language
Imagery
• The poem opens with a striking image of dryness: 'The skin cracks like
a pod.'. How does a pod crack? What sort of skin/pod do you imagine
here? What effect does this simile have on you?
• The sound of a drip of water is described in a metaphor as 'the voice
of a kindly god', while water itself is referred to as fortune, as silver,
and as 'the blessing'. What do these words have in common? 'Blessing'
is a religious word: blessings come from gods. A congregation can just
mean 'a crowd of people', but its main meaning is 'a crowd of
worshippers'. What does this imagery suggest about the importance
of water? Why did the poet choose Blessing as the title of her poem?
• When the water appears, we get words like rush, burst, crash, flow,
roar. What do these words have in common? What's the effect of
putting them close together? Can you link that effect with the list of
objects in lines 14-17?
Imtiaz Dharker has said this about the rhythm patterns in her poetry:
'My first instinct when I'm writing and when I'm saying the poems aloud is
always to get into a kind of iambic rhythm, so what I begin to do then is to
break the rhythm, break it internally. So I take it very much from spoken
rhythms, but at the same time I'm trying to do some bouncing off. I'm really
talking about the rhythms of my spoken word, which might be different
from the rhythms of someone else's.'
Ideas
The main idea in this poem is that water - so essential to life - comes to be
seen by people in a hot, dry country as supremely precious, a divine gift - a
blessing. Have a look at these quotes, and our suggestions about how they fit
into this theme