Christina Rossetti
Quick answer: Christina Rossetti craft guide: musical simplicity, restrained grief and the wild energy of Goblin Market, with the best poems for writers to study.
Christina Rossetti proves that simple diction and strict control can hold overwhelming feeling. Her short lyrics use small words, exact rhymes and gentle metres, yet the grief inside them presses against every line. Then there is 'Goblin Market': a long, irregular, almost feral poem unlike anything else in Victorian literature. One poet, two extremes, both masterful.
For writers, she is the great teacher of restraint: what to leave unsaid, how a withheld explanation intensifies a lyric, and how repetition can grieve.
The poem
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Christina Rossetti, 'Song' (1862)
Who Rossetti was
Christina Rossetti (1830-1894) grew up in an artistic London household; her brother Dante Gabriel co-founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and she modelled for its painters while publishing her own work. Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862) established her as a major poet.
Deeply devout, she twice broke engagements over religious differences and spent years in charitable work. She matters as one of the finest lyric technicians of the century, and 'In the Bleak Midwinter' has carried her words into millions of mouths as a carol.
The signature moves
Her craft shows most clearly in four habits.
What you can learn from her
Draft a grief poem in which you never name the loss. Write the weather, the instructions, the address to the beloved, and trust readers to bring their own bereavement; specificity of feeling does not require specificity of plot.
Try the reversal that powers her elegies: instead of asking to be remembered, give permission to forget. Emotional generosity surprises readers far more than sorrow does. And when a poem needs wildness, loosen line length while tightening rhyme, the 'Goblin Market' recipe, so the energy feels dangerous but never accidental.
Where to start reading
Begin with the short lyrics, end with the long strange one.
What poets can take from this
- Write a sorrow poem using words of one or two syllables only.
- Remove the backstory from a grief draft and see what strengthens.
- Let an elegy give permission rather than make demands.
- Build a dialogue poem entirely from questions and answers.
- For wild subjects, shorten and vary the lines but keep rhymes ringing.
Try it yourself
Write a poem of instructions for someone you love about what to do after you are gone, keeping every word plain and never naming death directly.
Questions
What is Goblin Market about?
Two sisters are tempted by goblin fruit-sellers; one eats and wastes away, and the other risks herself to win the antidote. Readers have taken it as fairy tale, religious allegory and much else; Rossetti called it a fairy story.
Did Christina Rossetti write In the Bleak Midwinter?
Yes. She wrote it as a Christmas poem, published in 1872. It became a beloved carol after being set to music by Gustav Holst and later Harold Darke.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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