Girl, Drowning - Dana Knott

The poems within Girl, Drowning by Dana Knott (she/her) were inspired by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (1829-1862), a pre-Raphaelite model, muse, poet, and artist. Much attention rests on Siddal's fame as the model for John Everett Millais' Ophelia (1851-1852), her laudanum addiction, and the exhumation of her corpse years after her death, so that her husband, artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, could retrieve a poetry manuscript he placed in her coffin. Girl, Drowning intends to amplify Siddal's voice and fill in other, rich details of her life, including her aspirations as a poet and artist and her desire for autonomy. Beneath the surface lies a woman who longed to be seen and loved as Siddal, the individual, rather than model, muse, and wife.

Knott, born in Chicago, Illinois, and residing in Delaware, Ohio, works in Columbus as Director of Libraries at the Columbus State Library. In 2021 she launched tiny wren lit, which publishes micropoetry online with downloadable zines for each issue, and in 2024 published the microchapbook Funeral Flowers (Rinky Dink Press).