February 10, 1934

Fleur Adcock was made an  OBE in 1996, for her work as a poet and editor.  She was born February 10, 1934) in New Zealand, though Britain claims her also. Her second book of verse was titled Tigers (1967), but we excerpt now from her fifth published volume The inner harbour (1979):

Our thin patient cat died purring, 

her small triangular head tilted back, 

the nurse's fingers caressing her throat, 

my hand on her shrunken spine; the quick needle.

Fleur Adcock is happy to be considered a feminist, though her significance ideologically is the confident and solitary stance of a woman who thinks for herself.