EMMA JONES

Sreekumar K
Facilitator, Lecole Chempaka International, Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala, India

Tiger in the Menagerie by Emma Jones is more like a collage of images

than a poem. It catches in very few words the ferocious nature of a
Tiger enclosed in a small and oppressive place. There is also a fine play
of words as the poet uses one part of speech for another deliberately
to create a great impact on the reader. The end result is that the poem
can be read several times and each time our mind responds differently
to the poem.

The poem is also an example of how real poetry will defy any kind of
rephrasing or translation. It is generally said that poetry is what is lost
in translation. It can be said about simplification or explanation. Poetry
works on the limitations of language. It goes beyond the limitation and
any attempt to bring it back to the confines of language is bound to
fail.

Literature is, in general understood by most people as allegorical in

nature. Those who are not well trained in literature will always try to
figure out what each line and phrase is trying to tell them. This leads
to lot of far fetching. Since we dont do this for an abstract painting,
breaking it down to the colours or lines, we should not do this to poetry
either breaking it down to its fine elements. Like an impressionist
painting this poem gets written on our mind and each time in a
different way.

However, a close look at the structure, content and style might help
the ordinary reader. First of all the poem has an interesting structure.
On the page the lines look like those on the flanks of a tiger. Two three-
line stanzas in the beginning, middle and end and two two-line stanzas
in between them, together, give us the image of something seen
through the bars of cage. The lines resemble the stripes on the tiger
too.

On the content side, the basic elements in the nature and appearance
of the animal are brought to the front. The poet plays with time and
space to effect a certain universality to her theme. The narrative strain
has an obscure beginning.

No one could say how the tiger got into the menagerie.

But what was encased and shown around was not as real as a tiger. It
was like the painting of a tiger, not comprehensive or complete but
only what was needed by the painter or the artist was there. It was too
brilliant to look like a dirty predator.

too much like the painting of a tiger.

But at night the captured and the capturer were one and the same. At
an unguarded moment, the alertness drops off and so does the
distinction. That which is caught and that which caught it became one
and the same.

when it was time for those eyes to rock shut

That which inhibited or prevented the tigers movements merged itself

into the tiger giving it total freedom.

the bars were the lashes of the stripes

the stripes were the lashes of the bars

Aggression, unashamed of itself, with no eyes whatsoever to see itself,

walked the world especially the Indian subcontinent.

and they walked together in their dreams so long

through the long colonnade
that shed its fretwork to the Indian main

But when the sun rose, all was made bare and the great tiger had
become nothing but an image in someones eye or mind. An eye
seeking the tiger saw it wherever it looked.

that when the sun rose theyd gone and the tiger was
one clear orange eye that walked into the menagerie.

But eventually at some point in history the tiger lose its tigerness and
it was not something worth looking at, let alone looking up to.

No one could say how the tiger got out in the menagerie.
It was too bright, too bare.

Even the menagerie wanted to cry tiger just to scare people since
there was no tiger there at all.

If the menagerie could, it would say tiger.

But the cautious but weak birds were careful. They would have locked
the door of the menagerie and let the tiger spend its life as a
exhibition item.
If the aviary could, it would lock its door.

They fluttered their wings and warned one another whenever the tiger
came inside.

Its heart began to beat in rows of rising birds

when the tiger came inside to wait.

Thus a very simple imagist poem uses its own obscurity to lend itself to
political readings against imperialism. History is written by the victors
and so the tiger was held high above the birds and the menagerie
above the aviary. But as light was shed on them, and as the darkness
of ignorance came to an end all idols were found to have feet of clay.

However, it is not necessary to analyze the poem for its political

connotations to appreciate its beauty. The poem lends itself to several
readings right from a focus on animals to the light shed on human
nature. The best way to understand the poem is to avoid tearing it to
pieces but going for a holistic appreciation like going back to a painting
over and over.