Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) is a poet who loomed large for me in college. Her poem about Emily Dickinson, “I am in Danger–Sir–” from her eighth collection of poetry, Diving into the Wreck (1973) helped me to understand the allusive half-rhymes of Dickinson as well as the strictures of her poetic and personal lives. Her earlier poem for poet Denise Levertov, “The Roofwalker,” (1961) helped me understand how it might feel to be a woman who published poetry, “…exposed, larger than life,/ and due to break my neck….”

Despite my admiration for her later work and life, the collection of hers that I keep coming back to is her first one. A Change of World (Yale University Press, 1951) was selected to receive the Yale Younger Poets Prize by W.H. Auden when Rich was in her senior year at Radcliffe College. I find the work astonishing seventy years later, and astonishingly mature for a young woman of twenty-two. Here is one of my perennial favorites:

Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers”

Aunt Jennifer’s tigers prance across a screen,
Bright 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 finger 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 prancing, proud and unafraid.

Background for My Poem, “Looking”:

I have been looking at old family photos this past couple of weeks, and some memories have come back with new clarity. I had forgotten about the incident described in the poem–looking through binoculars at an ocean-going ship as a child, and the startlement of seeing a stranger looking back at me. A more extroverted child might have been thrilled!

Happy Looking! Happy Seeing! LESLIE