Tapestry combines image and fabric, constructing scenes through threads that cross, bind, and conceal one another. Historically, tapestries have recorded battles, myths, domestic life, and allegorical worlds while also serving practical architectural functions. In poetry, tapestry provides a metaphor for interwoven voices, histories, and motifs. A tapestry poem may braid multiple speakers or time periods, allowing patterns to become visible only when readers consider the composition as a whole.

Tapestry is a textile art in which coloured weft threads create the design as the fabric itself is woven, distinguishing true tapestry from ordinary embroidery added to an existing cloth. Historically, large tapestries could narrate stories, display heraldry, decorate interiors, and provide insulation. Literary references often exploit the interweaving of many threads as a metaphor for history, memory, fate, or complex narrative. Compare weaving, loom, textile art, embroidery, Bayeux Tapestry, warp, weft, pattern, narrative art, and the metaphor of interwoven lives.