Excerpt:
<blockquote>That’s my last Duke painted on my locket.
Sofonisba’s work. Look; there’s no cocket
Wit there, no husbandly affection near.
Just an icy regard, a chilly sneer,
And a pair of painstakingly clean hands
That ne’er strangled an intimate, yet plans
To order it done with but a raised finger.</blockquote>
➤ narrative poetry from the pov of a dead woman to her terrible husband's new wife
➤ really fun and compelling to read on in a vacuum, but also it is clearly written in response to Browning's famous poem "My Last Duchess" and is from the pov of the dead woman that poem is about!
➤ also seems to be an alternate history narrative? again you don't need to know this to appreciate the poem but after reading it I had to look up the characters involved. POV character is Lucrezia de' Medici, her terrible husband is Alfonso II d'Este, but as far as I can tell the new wife is someone who in irl history died in infancy: Isabella, daughter of Charles III of Savoy.
➤ and now I really want to know more about the history of the time period and the ways that this would have affected things and why the author made these choices for the story of the poem!
➤ anyway. I like the poem. it's good.
➤ 1k words in length
