Shadow Reader is a radiant criss-cross of encounters, messages and earthy Punjabi proverbs, shot through with the dark thread of an unwelcome prophecy. The poems bind this looming curse to the colonisation of countries, the earth and its creatures, those who own the story and those who redirect it through art or artifice. ‘Does the warp look back at the one who is weaving and say, This is not how I remember it…?’ Imtiaz Dharker’s new collection pays attention to wilful erasures, exclusions and also to places of sanctuary. This is poetry as music, as momentum, as the texture and taste of languages, joyously sensuous and rich in images. While it acknowledges the everyday and its shadows, it is also an irreverent, playful celebration of life. Imtiaz Dharker grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. She was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2014 for her fifth collection Over the Moon and for her services to poetry. Her main themes are drawn from a life of transitions: childhood, exile, journeying, home, displacement, religious strife and terror, and latterly, grief. She is also an accomplished artist, and all her collections are illustrated with her drawings, which form an integral part of her books.

Table of Contents:
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 158 Acknowledgements