Which Brontë Sister Are You?

/ Issue 11.3 /

Suggested by Internet quizzes that align your answers with one of the sisters’ profiles

You’re just like Emily, quiet and courageous—
You don’t need any man to speak for you.
What secrets are you holding? Let them guess—
like Emily, you’re quietly courageous,
unfazed by ghosts or storms, mysterious…
Your eye is drawn to creatures deemed past rescue.
A free spirit in a vintage dress, you burn, courageous,
untouched by any man who speaks to you.

__

Your plainness can’t disguise that you’re ambitious.
Like duty-bound Charlotte, hoping for romance,
the rakes you can’t reform prove you’re rebellious.
You can’t disguise your pain. Still, you’re ambitious
to pen a stellar tale that tantalizes
men who envy your prose and cash advance…
It’s plain. You can’t disguise it. You’re ambitious,
despite your façade of duty, hope, romance.

__

Sidelined by show-offs, you’re gentle with a steely core.
You’re reserved, like Anne, intelligent and reflective.
You live your life as if touched by a higher power—
Your pen is a weapon. You’re steely at the core—
Confronting the injustice you deplore,
You fight to the bitter end. And you forgive
your show-off siblings, though you do keep score—
however reserved, well-mannered, and reflective.

Jane Satterfield

Jane Satterfield

Jane Satterfield is the recipient of awards in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bellingham Review, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Mslexia, and more. Her books of poetry are Her Familiars, Assignation at Vanishing Point, Shepherdess with an Automatic, and Apocalypse Mix, winner of the 2016 Autumn House Poetry Prize; her nonfiction includes the book Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond and recent essays in Ascent, DIAGRAM, Entropy, and Tupelo Quarterly. New poems may be found in Ecotone, Hopkins Review, Missouri Review, Orion, and more. She is married to poet Ned Balbo and lives in Baltimore.
Jane Satterfield

Also by Jane Satterfield (see all)

Author: Jane Satterfield

Jane Satterfield is the recipient of awards in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bellingham Review, Ledbury Poetry Festival, Mslexia, and more. Her books of poetry are Her Familiars, Assignation at Vanishing Point, Shepherdess with an Automatic, and Apocalypse Mix, winner of the 2016 Autumn House Poetry Prize; her nonfiction includes the book Daughters of Empire: A Memoir of a Year in Britain and Beyond and recent essays in Ascent, DIAGRAM, Entropy, and Tupelo Quarterly. New poems may be found in Ecotone, Hopkins Review, Missouri Review, Orion, and more. She is married to poet Ned Balbo and lives in Baltimore.