Tiger Tiger...

How I found my name and my courage.

I want to tell you a story, it’s the story of my name but much more than that. many years ago I dreamed of a tiger, she wore the reddest lipstick on her regular black lips and said to me that one day I would need her.

An important dream lost under the cups and saucers of everyday life, day after day losing her to mist. I was 9 months pregnant with my first daughter, giving birth was a shock to my casual comfort in my body home, my natural assumption it would be easy because I do yoga and martial arts. it would be easy because I was born a woman and surely that was enough? during transition, like probably every other woman before me, looked death in its uncompromising eye and wondered if I could really do this. it was in this moment that my living room became a jungle, my body sprouted orange fur and my claws tore the earth.

A woman in attendance said to me - you were a tiger! I saw it! And so did I! There in my arms was my beautiful newborn cub.

Straight after the first card I opened was a mama tiger and her cub! I had a phone call from a shamanic friend and he said did you get the tiger I sent you? I was amazed! here was my tiger from the dream, certainly. I eventually designed a tattoo alongside the awesome Paula Converse who helped me to realised it.

(my tattoo and my second babies feet!)

Five years later I had another dream, this time the tiger said “Your name is Susannah Violette” it felt like a command! so for fun I began using it as my pen name (my first name is really Susannah) the first painting I signed with it felt amazing! like I was somehow stepping into myself.

(The first painting I signed with Susannah Violette)

When I met my husband, I knew there was no way on this earth I was going be Mrs Pickering! to me it sounded utterly Dickensian! so I said to Marcus - would you consider changing your name too and we begin a whole new family legacy. He said yes and we both changed our name to Violette officially!  (in the UK you even get a discount if you change your name more than once!) so now it is my official name!

(Rose Walker’ Painting of the tiger from my dream)

Underneath the Tiger

She brought the noise of rain
hysterical and brittle 
I was sad for the green mangos 
torn from the branch.

She carried tinder in her heart
already alive and pulsing.
For me the stars were absent
the day nauseous.

Seas of blood parted us
then brought us together.
I nested an alien in my belly.
Fish like, I learned to swim.

There I was dressed in white
the monsoon muddying up my
Yoga trousers. Om became pyre,
slipped silken into sleep.

Vomiting was like being born.

The world began there
with my head in a toilet bowl.
Headstand on a beach, 
threat of drowning.

Falling so deep into grief
I missed the omen. 
A bud, a scent, even my own heart
beat, another heart beating.

Underneath the tiger,
looking up at her cub filled belly.
Her harsh lipstick
"go slow, go so very slow".
Shimmy into her orange pelt and 
push.



This first poem is obviously about my pregnancy that began in India with my partner at the time readying to leave me because of the baby. (he left the moment we hit English soil and I never heard from him again he never met his daughter - who is more tiger than I will ever be!!)

These are both very personal poems so I hope you can find something in them that resonates for you. 


Bathing with Clay

My imprint is striped
when the water
whisks its story downstream.

If I were to read it like tea leaves
or coffee grounds, 
I would see only a tigress,
fur stretched to the cardinal points
 - a striped pelt. 

eyes, the colour of clay
mirror the lake, the soft sky.
This spine, the mist
soft and diffuse its message
hard to hold.

Ribs fan out like ripples from a stone
hidden amongst the  
barred camouflage 
of bright weed.

My tail, my heart, my rudder
whips snake-like 
hip to naked hip.

I am submerged 
my body is half earth
half blood-water.

I hold a tigers bitter breath.

If you enjoyed my words please consider leaving a tip, restacking or recommending! I am so happy you are here!