“Dulle Griet Stages a New Assault”

I owe roundabout thanks to fellow author Kate Heartfield for this poem: her novel The Chatelaine (previously published as Armed in Her Fashion) introduced me to Dulle Griet, as seen in the painting by Bruegel the Elder — a painting that’s apparently meant to mock loud, aggressive women, but in this day and age, Dulle Griet comes across as a more admirable figure than Bruegel intended. After all, she and her posse are raiding Hell itself! Reading the Wikipedia page linked there also introduced me to a sixteenth-century proverb from Antwerp:

One woman makes a din, two women a lot of trouble, three an annual market, four a quarrel, five an army, and against six the Devil himself has no weapon.

That gave me the perfect structuring principle for the poem. I’m delighted to say it has become my second poetry sale to Strange Horizons; I will update here when it goes live!