Winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2014
Shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award 2014
Imtiaz Dharker grew up a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow, was adopted by India and married into Wales. 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.
Over the Moon is her fifth book from Bloodaxe. These are poems of joy and sadness, of mourning and celebration: poems about music and feet, church bells, beds, café tables, bad language and sudden silence. In contrast with her previous work written amidst the hubbub of India, these new poems are mostly set in London, where she has built a new life with – and since the death of – her husband Simon Powell.
Imtiaz Dharker was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2014 for Over the Moon and for her services to poetry. She has since published her sixth collecton Luck is the Hook .
'...an incredibly poignant, heart-breaking account of grief, loss, renewal and moving on; the illustrations work with the poems in really surprising and beautiful ways.’ - Helen Mort, recommending Over the Moon on Radio 4's World at One
‘This is a passionate, uplifting collection of poems about language, love and loss, grief and joy, elegy and celebration. The loss of a great love makes poems of piercing beauty. In her finest book to date, Imtiaz Dharker finds resolution in language itself, and in a world the more loved for the sharpness of loss.’ – Gillian Clarke
'Imtiaz Dharker's new collection is the crown to a celebratory, humane, wholly utterable, subtly crafted poetry. Its dark jewels are the magnificent poems of bereavement, which will surely endure. Reading her, one feels that were there to be a World Laureate, Imtiaz Dharker would be the only candidate.' - Carol Ann Duffy
‘…poems that wound and sear the mind while also allowing an exorcism of the trappings of loss.’ – Hayden Murphy, Glasgow Herald
‘Set mainly in London, these poems can be as exuberant and as dark as the capital itself, and one of them includes the best line ever written about this uneasy, riparian foundation on the Thames.’ – Nicholas Crane, Best Books, The Week [on Over the Moon ]
‘Aching truth spoke through Clare Shaw’s Flood (Bloodaxe), while Imtiaz Dharker’s beautifully illustrated Over the Moon (Bloodaxe) left a lasting impression...’ – Jane Burn, Morning Star (Best of 2019: Poetry)
Imtiaz Dharker reads five poems
Imtiaz Dharker reads five poems: 'Blessing' from Postcards from god, 'Honour killing' and 'They'll say, "She must be from another country"' from I Speak for the Devil , and 'The terrorist at my table' and 'How to cut a pomegranate' from The terrorist at my table . This film is from the DVD-book In Person: 30 Poets
Imtiaz Dharker at Newcastle Poetry Festival 2023
Imtiaz Dharker reads the poem 'Chaudhri Sher Mobarik Looks at the Loch' from Luck is the Hook , followed by 'Undone' from Over the Moon , and then ‘The Trick’, also from Luck is the Hook . The rest of the reading features several new poems from Shadow Reader , which is published by Bloodaxe in May 2024.
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