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Issue 12: | March 2022 |
Prose Poem: | 389 words |
—After George Ault *
* Publisher’s Notes:
[1] One of several paintings depicting the crossroads of Russell’s Corners in
Woodstock, New York, which were produced by George Copeland Ault (1891–1948)
between 1943 and 1948: Bright Light at Russell’s Corners (oil on canvas,
1946), held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (link retrieved 25 February 2022):
https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/bright-light-russells-corners-679
[2] and [3] From Wikipedia:
Ault worked in oil, watercolor, and pencil. He is
often grouped with Precisionist painters such as Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford
because of his unadorned representations of architecture and urban landscapes. However,
the ideological aspects of Precisionism and the unabashed modernism of his influences
are not so apparent in his work—for instance, he once referred to skyscrapers as
“tombstones of capitalism” and considered the industrialized American city
“the Inferno without the fire”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ault).
[6] The quotation by Nietzsche is paraphrased from his philosophical treatise,
Thus Spake Zarathustra (published in German from 1883 to 1885).
Primary sources of information about George Ault’s life include the memoir by
his widow, Louise Ault, Artist in Woodstock:
George Ault, the Independent Years (Dorrance Publishing, 1978); as well as sketch
books, correspondence, and other written materials on file as
George Ault papers: 1892-1980 at the Smithsonian’s
Archives of American Art.
is from Toronto, Canada and writes prose poetry, flash, and other forms of little stories. Her work has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies, including Gyroscope, Free Flash Fiction, Bright Flash, Club Plum, Red Eft, and Indelible, among others. Her story The Neon Raven won first place in a writing challenge at MacQueen’s Quinterly, and her work has been nominated multiple times for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Her most recent of six collections of prose poems are Pretty Time Machine (2020) and Winter in June (2021). Some of her works have been translated into Urdu.
Lorette is founder and editor of The Ekphrastic Review (established 2015), a journal devoted to writing inspired by art. She is also an award-winning visual artist, with collectors in 30 countries from Estonia to Qatar. Visit her at: www.mixedupmedia.ca
⚡ Two Must-Read Books by The Queen of Ekphrasis, commentary in MacQ-9 (August 2021) by Clare MacQueen, with links to additional resources
⚡ Featured Author: Lorette C. Luzajic at Blue Heron Review, with two of her prose poems (“Disappoint” and “The Piano Man”); plus “Poet as Pilgrim,” a review of Pretty Time Machine by Mary McCarthy (March 2020)
⚡ Fresh Strawberries, an ekphrastic prose poem in KYSO Flash (Issue 11, Spring 2019), nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize
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