4 Must-Read Sewing Poems

Poems about sewing celebrate the artistry and symbolism behind this age-old craft. They pay homage to the laborious process of sewing, which mirrors the patience, precision, and dedication required to create something beautiful from raw materials.

Beyond the literal act of sewing, these poems use metaphors of stitching and mending to convey themes of connection, healing, and restoration. They may explore the threads that bind families and communities together, emphasizing the value of unity and collaboration in a fragmented world.

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The Quilting

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

‘The Quilting’ by Paul Laurence Dunbar is a very short love poem that reveals the speaker’s growing affection for a woman named Dolly.

'The Quilting' uses quilting as a metaphor and symbol for matchmaking. As the speaker pines for the woman he loves, he wishes that he could be the scrap of fabric right next to her, joined to her by the threads of love. This use of sewing as a symbol brings additional meaning to an already meaning-rich activity.

Dolly sits a–quilting by her mother, stitch by stitch,

Gracious, how my pulses throb, how my fingers itch,

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Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

by Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich’s ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ critiques the oppression of women in marriages using images of sewn tigers.

Sewing is a symbolic act of creative expression and escape for Aunt Jennifer, an escape that even death can't provide her. She sews scenes of bold and proud tigers, likely reflecting her repressed desires. It seems that through her needlework, she finds a source of expression and an escape from her everyday reality. Sewing offers her a form of artistic expression, allowing women like her to experience freedom by creating with their own agency.

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.

They do not fear the men beneath the tree;

They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

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Miz Rosa Rides the Bus

by Angela Jackson

‘Miz Rosa Rides the Bus’ is written by a prominent member of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), Angela Jackson. It dates back to the late 19th century when the Jim Crow laws existed.

Miz Rosa’s life as a seamstress plays a key role in how the poem opens. She is exhausted from working with rough materials, using an old machine, and stitching through endless piles of fabric. Sewing becomes more than just a job here. It stands for the long hours, the pain in her body, and the hard life she leads. Her tired hands tell a story even before the conflict on the bus begins to unfold.

That day in December I sat down
by Miss Muffet of Montgomery.
I was myriad-weary. Feets swole
from sewing seams on a filthy fabric;

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I Sit and Sew

by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

Dunbar-Nelson’s ‘I Sit and Sew’ expresses a woman’s frustration with her confined role, longing to impact the world beyond her sewing.

I sit and sew—a useless task it seems,

My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams—

The panoply of war, the martial tred of men,

Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken

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4 Must-Read Sewing Poems

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4 Must-Read Sewing Poems

The Quilting

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

by Adrienne Rich

Miz Rosa Rides the Bus

by Angela Jackson

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