The Right wordImtiaz Dharker

Before Reading

Words are powerful and suggestive. Look at this list of adjectives:

• Childlike

• Youthful

• Juvenile

• Childish

• Young

Which are positive and which are negative?

Don’t put people in boxes

Negative stereotypes

• What are some common negative stereotypes

About the Author: Imtiaz Dharker (1954 -

Born to Pakistani parents, she was brought up in Scotland and divides her time between London, Wales and India. She is an award-winning-poet, artist and filmmaker. Many of her poems explore themes of belonging, home, freedom, and displacement.

Vocabulary

• Lurking: prowling, creeping around.

•Hostile: unfriendly

•Militant: (noun) activist, rebel, revolutionary

•Wavering: hesitating, being indecisive

•Guerilla: member of a small band of armed fighters

•Martyr: someone who dies for his/her beliefs.

The Right WordOutside the door,

lurking in the shadows,

is a terrorist.

Is that the wrong description?

Outside that door,

taking shelter in the shadows,

is a freedom fighter.

I haven’t got this right.

Outside, waiting in the shadows,

is a hostile militant.

Are words no more

than waving, wavering flags?

Outside your door,

watchful in the shadows,

is a guerrilla warrior.

God help me.

Outside, defying every shadow,

stands a martyr.

The Right Word

I saw his face.

No words can help me now.

Just outside the door,

lost in shadows,

is a child who looks like mine.

One word for you.

Outside my door,

his hand too steady,

his eyes too hard

is a boy who looks like your son, too.

The Right Word

I open the door.

Come in, I say.

Come in and eat with us.

The child steps in

and carefully, at my door,

takes off his shoes.

Characteristics of this poem

• The poem is written in free verse using a conversational style.

• There are no rhyming words and no regular rhythm, but the poem is tightly structured into nine stanzas.

• Each verse is an attempt to describe the same person accurately.

• The poem is a conversation that the poet is having with herself about the perceptions and connotations of words.

Content

• The poem was written in 2006, five years after the events if 9/11 and during a time when the image of a terrorist was very topical.

• For some people the perpetrators of 9/11 were people fighting oppression while others saw them as murderers.

• This poem explores the power of words and their connotations.

Content

• The poet tries different ways of describing the person outside her door but eventually, in stanza six, she abandons words and just uses her eyes.

Content

• In this way, she moves from fearfully describing the person as terrorist in stanza one to inviting a child inside her home in the final stanza.

9/11

9/11

Being Muslim after 9/11

Questions

1. Match the names the poet uses to the verbs she uses in each stanza. (6)

Names Verbs

Guerilla Warrior -Watchful

Taking shelter

A child - lost Lost

Freedom fighter –taking shelter

Lost

Martyr - defying Waiting

Terrorist - lurking Lurking

Hostile militant -waiting

defying

Questions

2. The names freedom fighter and terrorist carry very different connotations. Match the following words and phrases with each of the names:

Willing to die, willing to kill, intimidating, sacrificial, fearful, violent, strong principles.

Connotation: an idea or feeling which a word invokes for a person in addition to its literal or primary meaning.

"the word ‘discipline’ has unhappy connotations of punishment and repression"

Questions

2. The names freedom fighter and terrorist carry very different connotations. Match the following words and phrases with each of the names:

Willing to die, willing to kill, intimidating, sacrificial, fearful, violent, strong principles.

Freedom fighter: willing to die, brave, sacrificial, strong principles

Terrorist: willing to kill, intimidating, fearful, violent.

Questions

3. Look at the way the word outside is used in the first seven stanzas. In the last two stanzas the word in is used. What does this show us about the poet’s change in thinking?

The movement from outside to in shows what happens literally as the person outside comes inside the house. But it also demonstrates the figurative change in the poet’s thinking: she starts the poem by separating herself from the person and at the end of the poem she integrates him into her own life and sees the person as someone who looks like her own son.

4. Why do you think the child removes his shoes when he enters the poet’s house? What id the symbolism of this gesture.

The child removes his shoes which is a mark of respect. It is as if he senses the effort she has gone to perceive him differently and this is how he thanks her: with humility and mutual respect.

Questions

5. Discuss the context of what was taking place in the world at the time the poem was being written.

The poem was written five years after the events of 9/11. Many people were outraged by the attack and misdirected their anger at Muslim people everywhere, imagining terrorists around every corner.