Please go buy their journal! It's a really tremendous literary magazine
behrend.psu.edu/school-of-hu...

I’m immensely grateful to George Looney and Celine Gauge at Lake Effect for supporting this work. Not only did they publish this poem, but they also published the very first poem I wrote for this manuscript back in 2021.

In an ironic twist of fate, Constable would finally be recognized for his contributions to British art and elected to the Royal Academy the very next year.

A year and a half after the completion of "The Cornfield," following Maria's years-long struggle with tuberculosis, she passed away.

Despite these additions, and Constable’s hopes, the painting would not sell during Constable's lifetime.

No one wanted to buy his paintings, and he was struggling to cover the family’s expenses. Perhaps in a kind of desperate response, he added elements to this painting that he thought might entice buyers.

Though today Constable is considered by many—along with JMW Turner—to be one of the most important landscape painters in the history of Western art, his career to this point had not gone well.

As the National Gallery notes, this “wooded lane leading to a more sunlit landscape” was a common theme in Constable’s work. And, though the path depicted in “The Cornfield” is a real one, the village to which it leads was invented by Constable.

Maria had contracted tuberculosis several years prior, and her health had deteriorated significantly in the ensuing time.

The painting depicts a real path from Constable’s childhood home in Dedham Vale, though he painted it from London—mid-winter—from memory and old sketches, as the health of his wife, Maria, was deteriorating.

Yes! That's the one. Thank you! Love J Robert Lennon, so will definitely check those other two out as well.

I'm just happy to be here!