Elizabeth Siddal Rossetti, Cemetery Superstar
Retaining fame 160 years
After I died unknown- artwork unsold,
My verses unpublished-has been bizarre.
Do stars need darkness to appreciate
Their glowing? Or wise men to point them out?
My temperamental husband, mad with guilt,
Laid me to rest with poems, his bound book.
This hemissed- more than my companionship.
Where’s my work now? Just then there came a crash.
Rude crowbars pried apart my long-sealed lid.
Men open-mouthed like choristers stared shocked.
Distraught, he’d sent them. Dig her up! He’ll learn
My flesh looked pale, my red hair’s grown more wild.
Rossetti’s poems sweetened maggots’ meals.
Worm-eaten scraps had crowned my coffined head,
A spectral tapestry akin to my
Ophelia pose, a dead girl prettified,
Myself a teen when painted by Millais.
A painting’s fame forgets dead models- but
Art helps us dream back everything that’s lost.
Elizabeth Siddal [1829-1862] wed Dante Gabriel Rossetti in1849. In 1869, her husband’s agent Charles
Augustus Howell encouraged Rossetti to put an exhumation in motion to retrieve the poems from her
grave.
***
Native New Yorker LindaAnn LoSchiavo, a Pushcart Prize and Rhysling Award nominee, is a member of SFPA and The Dramatists Guild. Elgin Award winner "A Route Obscure and Lonely" and "Concupiscent Consumption" are her latest poetry titles. Forthcoming: a chapbook by Cerasus Poetry and a full-length collection by Beacon Books. She has been leading a poetry critique group for two years. Her Texas Guinan documentary won "Best Feature Documentary" at N.Y. Women's Film Fest (Dec. 2021).