Imtiaz Dharker is a British poet, artist and documentary filmmaker. She has won the Queen’s Gold Medal for her English poetry and was appointed Chancellor of Newcastle University from January 2020. In 2019 she was considered for the position of Poet Laureate following the tenure of Carol Ann Duffy, but withdrew herself from contention in order, as she stated, to maintain focus on her writing. Dharker was born in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. She was brought up in Glasgow where her family moved when she was less than a year old. She was married to Simon Powell, the founder of the organization Poetry Live, who died in October 2009 after surviving for eleven years with cancer. Dharker divides her time between London, Wales, and Mumbai. She says she describes herself as a "Scottish Muslim Calvinist" adopted by India and married into Wales. Her daughter Ayesha Dharker is an actress in international films, television and stage.
Literary career
Dharker has written six books of poetry: Purdah, Postcards from God, I Speak for the Devil, The Terrorist at my Table, Leaving Fingerprints and Over the Moon. Dharker is a prescribed poet on the British AQAGCSE English syllabus. Her poems Blessing and This Room were included in the AQA Anthology Different Cultures, Cluster 1 and 2 respectively. Her poem "Tissue" appears in the 2017 AQA poetry anthology for GCSE English Literature. Her poem "Living Space" also appears in the Eduqas WJEC poetry anthology for GCSE English Literature. Dharker was a member of the judging panel for the 2008 Manchester Poetry Prize, with Carol Ann Duffy and Gillian Clarke. For many Dharker is seen as one of Britain's most inspirational contemporary poets. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. In the same year, she received the Cholmondeley Award from the Society of Authors. In 2011 she judged the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award with the poet Glyn Maxwell. In 2012 she was nominated a Parnassus Poet at the Festival of the World, hosted by the Southbank Centre as part of the Cultural Olympiad 2012, the largest poetry festival ever staged in the UK, bringing together poets from all the competing Olympic nations. She was the poet in residence at the Cambridge University Library in January–March 2013. In July 2015 she appeared on the popular BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs and spoke about growing up in Glasgow and her decision to leave her family and elope to India, as well as her second marriage to the late Simon Powell.
Themes
The main themes of Dharker's poetry include home, freedom, journeys, geographical and cultural displacement, communal conflict and gender politics. All her books are published by the poetry publishing house Bloodaxe Books. Purdha And Other Poems deals with the various aspects of a Muslim woman's life where Dharker explores the idea of oppression and violence thought to be a product through the culture of purdah.
Film and illustration
Dharker is also a documentary filmmaker and has written and directed more than a hundred films and audio-visuals, centering on education, reproductive health and shelter for women and children. In 1980 she was awarded a Silver Lotus for a short film. An accomplished artist, she has had 10 solo exhibitions of pen-and-ink drawings in India, Hong Kong, USA, UK, and France.
