Aunt Jennifer's TigersBy:
Adrienne Rich
***
Aunt Jennifer's tigers stride across a screen,
Bring topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.
Aunt Jennifer's fingers fluttering through her wool
Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon aunt jennifer's hand.
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on striding, proud and unafraid.
*** She wrote this poem in 1951 and the
following is a direct quote from her about the poem:
In writing this poem, composed and apparently cool as it is, I thought
I was creating a portrait of an imaginary woman. But this woman suffers from the opposition of her imagination, worked out in tapestry,
and her lifestyle, "ringed with ordeals she was mastered by."
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