The brilliant Michelle Navajas is the Poet of the Week for the W3 Poetry Prompt #109. Her theme for this week’s prompt is unrequited love.
Click here to read the full poetry prompt guidelines.
Mich’s prompt guidelines
Compose a modified Italian sonnet with the following specifications:
Theme: unrequited love
Length: 14 lines
Stanzas: two stanzas (an octet and a sestet)
Meter: not required (this is why it’s a ‘modified’ Italian sonnet)
Rhyme: ABBAABBA CDECDE
Some variation exists for the rhyme scheme of the last six lines, but the first eight lines are always ABBAABBA.
When I saw that the theme for Mich’s prompt is unrequited love, the Dicken’s character of Miss Faversham sprang to mind. I wrote about her distant cousin, Miss Ledd.
Miss Ledd
Too many years ago,
You broke my heart.
It lay wounded, bleeding; ripped apart.
Why did you cruelly jilt me so?
Wilt thou tell me what I yearn to know?
I was young, attractive, and smart!
Wherefore hence went Cupid’s dart.
Whence did you turn from fiancé to foe?
She reads his old letters kept in a box,
The faded tear-stained ink blurs into shadow.
He was long gone from her life—gone with the wisp-o’-the-will.
(She didn’t know he was ill and died from the pox)
In her hands, the pages torn and tinged foxed yellow.
Lovelorn in her bridal veil, she waited to be his wife—and waits still.
~
Lesley Scoble, May 2024
Time-lapse (20 secs) of my sketch of Miss Ledd
Thank you, Michelle, for your Petrarchan prompt.
My thanks also to our gracious host, David, The Skeptics Kaddish, from whom his encouragement and inspiration are invaluable.
Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.
LesleyScoble.com 
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