Wifedom: A Poetic Overview using MSN Co-Pilot with (not enough) edits by Diana Moore
(V.2.) 8 Dec 25
Out of interest, I wanted to see what AI could do with Anna Funder’s story of Mrs Orwell. This is not me writing, or my writing style. I would want to do ‘something clever’ with Wifedom, and my own Lifedom, such as Babydom that halted my Writerdom for a number of years. Oh! And we mustn’t forget Cookingdom, Shoppingdom and Washingdom. And Inspiredom. (My two children are kind, clever, creative – and they’ve completed their duty in leaving the nest!) I wonder what a 2025 Husbandom would say? “Hey! I’m walking the baby in the Pramdom and feeding from the baby Spoondom. Yes, I can change in the Kingdom of Nappydom! I am a modern take on Daddydom, Daddydom, Daddy-Daddy-dom.”
In this ‘rhyming review’ (where I’d wanted a brilliant ballad) I have guided AI with questions and edits to its initial suggestions. It had a habit of using the word ‘scaffold’ which I didn’t feel was right for this piece. I also tried out other styles – Co-Pilot asked if I’d like to try a Rap, being naturally drawn to musical compositions, I did – and it was quite good. But with each example, more was needed (as we writers find during the early process of writing for ourselves). For now, here an extract (6 of 10 stanzas) from the AI Poetic Overview. And it still needs editing!
Dear Readers and Writers: Your thoughts please, such as did it entice you to read Wifedom? Feel free to ‘have a go’ and ‘make changes’ – let me know how you get on.
In shadows she stood, while the spotlight was his,
Eileen O’Shaughnessy, a life gone amiss.
George Orwell wrote truths of the world’s disguise,
Yet her labour and love hid from history’s eyes.
Her hands shaped his pages, his drafts she refined,
The brilliance we praise was a partnership signed.
Invisible editor, silent and true,
Her effort the framework on which his words grew.
Meanwhile, and in between:
She scrubbed at the lavatory, blockages grim,
While Orwell chased muses, the world turned to him.
In Spain she was stranded, the city in flame,
Headquarters abandoned, yet she still remained.
On a mattress she sat, with the secrets below,
Passports and papers the world shouldn’t know.
Through danger she slipped, through shadows she fled,
A tale half imagined, half history read.
Her courage or fiction — the line’s hard to trace,
But Funder restores her to time and to place.
Anna Funder unearths what silence concealed,
A wife’s hidden story, at last now revealed.
Through fragments of letters, creatively art,
She restores Eileen’s place, her essential part.
So Wifedom reminds us, with rhythm and rhyme,
Unseen contributions can outlast their time.
A call to remember, to honour, to see –
The wives in the margins who shaped history.
Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, by Anna Funder is published by Penguin