The poem centers on the description of a tor-
nado touching down in a desert area, a place where
cacti and sand are part of the landscape. The
tension comes from juxtaposing the arid desert
with the torrential rainstorm. Mora describes the
lightning and how the cholla, hawks, and butter-
flies are all swept up together by the driving wind.
The poem is more than just a description, however.
It also personifies the tornado, mentioning its hair
and eyes and lips, calling it ‘‘her.’’ These parts are
clear enough. What is not explained, however, is
who this tornado woman represents and how
much she is supposed to tell readers about woman-
kind in general.
It would not make sense to say that the tor-
nado is meant to be a comment on all women,
even though it is tempting to read the poem that
way. There is just too much complexity here for
such a direct answer. To some extent, the tornado
is an empowering image. Her power contrasts
with stereotypes that show women as weak, and
she has the freedom to express that power, even if
it means causing destruction. Since the feminist
movement in the 1960s, there has been a con-
scious effort to challenge preconceived beliefs
about gender. People have asked why it is consid-
ered socially acceptable for a man to act out his
anger show and express his pent-up frustrations,
whereas the same behavior is considered unac-
ceptable for women. In order to reset social
expectations, some writers have made a point of
showing women who exert their strength and
make an impact. Of course, power cannot be
fully exerted if one is going to fret about what
the results might be, so saying that a powerful
woman has some degree of irresponsibility—that
she is as dangerous as a rampant tornado—is a
compliment in this context, not an insult.
But the tornado in ‘‘Uncoiling’’ might not be
intended as positive. Its ferocity is balanced with
a vulnerability that Mora presents in the final
stanzas. As an impersonal force of nature, the
tornado simply exhausts its energy, destroying
whatever happens to be in its path. The human
characteristics Mora ascribes to it elicit the read-
er’s empathy. In particular, the word ‘‘uncoiling’’
gives this woman a motive for her destructive-
ness. Mora does not say what might be coiled,
wound up, within her, but she does not have to.
Without specifics, readers can assume that her
problems are the universal ones, and that works
fine in the poem.
The tornado is depicted as a woman
unleashing her power, unloading her energy,
playing out her force. In this human process, it
becomes sympathetic in the final stanza. She
falls asleep. This is not the way a fierce destroyer
behaves. Real tornados lose their velocity even-
tually, and when they do, they cease to be. In the
final stanza the sense is that the world has
resumed its calm, now that the tornado has
gone away. Presenting a sleeping woman at the
end, drawing attention to the placid stars above,
gives a sense that the storm’s force only exists for
so long and then it no longer exists.
The image of a sleeping woman at the end
does not erase the poem’s negative implications
completely. There is never a good occasion for a
tornado; nobody is ever pleased to see one or
hear one approach. Probably Mora does not
intend ‘‘Uncoiling’’ to make a universal state-
ment about women. It is one thing to say that
women can be fierce, and that tornados can be
gentle, but linking all women to such a rampant
force does not make sense.
It becomes clear that the tornado is not a
comment about all women when other women
appear in the poem’s third stanza. These women
are frightened, hiding from the tornado and
singing to their children with voices that are
fragile as lace. They could not be more unlike
the poem’s vibrant central character.
It would be pointless to question which
image is really meant to represent women. The
answer is obvious; there are women who are wild
and women who are weak, women who are
destructive and women who are nurturing, loud
women, quiet women, and so on. A more relevant
question is whether one type of woman is more
authentic. Any sign of bias could be read to imply
that if it is not how women are, it is at least a sign
of how the poet thinks they should be. The tor-
nado is the image that dominates the poem, cer-
tainly, and some readers might assume from this
that it stands as a statement about womanhood,
but the unavoidable negative connotations asso-
ciated with a tornado make that unlikely. By
contrast, there is nothing particularly admirable
about the other women, either. Contrasted with
the tornado, they seem weak, but they are also
caring for children. Contrasted to them, the tor-
nado seems dangerous. The portraits are so
evenly handled that neither can be assumed to
be the true or best image of women. By not taking
sides, the poem ends up saying that women areUncoiling