Poetry. TIGERS is an exploration of a series of mutigenerational landscapes of the feminine--female adolescence, womanhood, motherhood, and personal revelation. Where the traditional coming of age story moves from innocence to experience, TIGERS moves, through the excavation of trauma, addiction, recovery, adolescence, parenthood, and punk rock, from the ignorance and misunderstanding of a youth's misbegotten toughness, into a turning inward toward tenderness and resilience--toward, in essence, what it really takes to be mature, tough, and--tigerly. With a principle focus on the dangers threatening girlhood, this book examines not merely the threat of degradation and assault, but, more deeply, the squandering of love through ignorance and inattention. TIGERS here surely serve as symbols for such outward and inward threat, but also as a sign of the mature and tender maternal toughness of youth-grown-wise through trial and reclamation.