ABSTRACT
The Bilosnic's prose poem "The Tiger in Speech" states how the word tiger helps him to leave behind the "uprooted" lyrical poems that he began writing, to seek a deeper and more genuine inspiration, "to return to the first word again". The founding act, as recounted in "The Tiger in the Market", occurs when the poet spots a "plush tiger" when he is an adult, after a childhood in which he had never been given a single toy. The passage illustrates the tiger's autobiographical significance as well as the irony that sometimes lightens poems with serious import. Uniting with the tiger's being, with a "world" that is no longer a hostile steppe or a menacing jungle but rather a "refuge", enables the poet to become himself, at least for a while. Drawing on symbolism from various spiritual and philosophical traditions, including Christianity, Bilosnic delineates various metaphysical tigers, as in "The Tiger on a Throne of Snow".
