Lady of the Beasts

Robin Morgan’s second collection of poems is a rich tapestry of female experience, both literal and mythic

Daughter, wife, mother, lover, artist, and even priestess are all here in shorter lyrics that cluster around four subjects: blood ties, activism and art, love between women, and archetypes. But Morgan surpasses the political grief and rage she delineated in Monster, her acclaimed first book of poems—especially in the four major metaphysical poems here: “The City of God,” balancing grace and despair; “Easter Island,” on the ironies of transcendence in embattled love; “The Network of the Imaginary Mother,” which became a virtual anthem of the women’s movement; and “Voices from Six Tapestries,” inspired by the famous Lady and theUnicorn weavings that hang in the Musée de Cluny in Paris.
 
Themes of familial love and hurt, mortality, survival, and transformation inform the poems collected here as the author weaves a wise and powerful self into being. Lady of the Beasts is Robin Morgan at her most lyrical yet.