SOURCE: “Ars Poetica/Ars Domestica: The Self-Reflexive Poetry of Lydia Sigourney and Emily Dickinson,” in Poetics in the Poem: Critical Essays on American Self-Reflexive Poetry, edited by Dorothy Z. Baker, Peter Lang, 1997, pp. 69-89.

In the following essay, Baker claims that both Sigourney and Dickinson use images of domesticity in attempts to forge an identity for the American woman poet.

I'm plain at speech, direct in purpose: when I speak, you'll take the meaning as it is, And not allow for puckerings in the silks By clever stitches. I'm a woman, sir, And use the woman's figures naturally, As you, the male license. 

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh)

When Aurora Leigh points out that she “uses the woman's figures,” she is speaking of rhetorical tropes, in particular, of metaphor. In this conversation with Romney, who is also an artist, Aurora distinguishes between the range of her metaphorical language...