Tender Buttons is a 1914 book by American writer Gertrude Stein consisting of three sections titled "Objects", "Food", and "Rooms".
The book has also been, however, criticized as "a modernist triumph, a spectacular failure, a collection of confusing gibberish, and an intentional hoax".
In addition to the title's French implication of nipples, some have speculated that the poems reveal the intimacies of Stein's relationship with Alice B. Toklas.
[5] Others have relied on a correlation between Stein's fascination with gazing on the subjects of her poems with Freud's fetishization of the object to reveal this underlying theme of sexuality.
She emphasizes the importance of sight, stating, "I was trying to live in looking, and looking was not to mix itself up with remembering", and "I did express what something was, a little by talking and listening to that thing, but a great deal by looking at that thing… I had the feeling that something should be included and that something was looking, and so concentrating on looking I did the Tender Buttons because it was easier to do objects than people if you were just looking".
[6] Tender Buttons: The Corrected Centennial Edition (City Lights Publishers) was released in April, 2014 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of its publication.