By GLYNIS HART
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NEWPORT – A traveling exhibit of poetry and art will make its final stop on a statewide tour in Newport at the Library Arts Center this month. The exhibit opens this weekend, Feb. 9, but to avoid conflicting with the Winter Carnival, the opening reception will be held next Friday, Feb. 15 from 5-7 p.m.
Twelve poets and 12 visual artists paired off to produce “Text and Textiles,” poems and art created together. At each of the exhibit’s stops participating poets give a reading of their works and hold a panel discussion how they and the artists worked together.
“We connected around process,” said New Hampshire Poet Laureate Alice B. Fogel, whose poem “Event Horizon” is paired with two works by Mary Cornog, a weaving and a painting. “She does these paintings where she paints, then scrapes away layers, then paints. It’s a lot of disappearing revisions, which is kind of the way I write.”
“Each of the pairs worked out how the evolving poems influenced the artwork or vice versa,” said Fogel.
Each artist’s interpretation of the poem visually also prompts the viewer to look at it differently. How did they see what they saw in this poem, and why did they express it in these colors, or these textures?
Henry Walters’ poem “On Laws of Contraband” is printed in lead type (therefore backward) embedded in a middle panel of Linda Greenwood’s “Laws of Contraband,” with photographs in the outer panels. To read the poem, viewers look in a mirror, which also shows the mirror image of the photographs.
Emma Breslow’s “Where I Belong” was written while the poet was in college in Ireland; visual artist Shawna Gibbs recreated it with a collage using pieces of postcards, photographs and return addresses. “Dream of Two Black Owls,” by Marnie Cobbs is paired with “Dream” by Kristen Weyrick-Scott’s mixed textiles, needle and felted wool. Often the pairings feel very close, one idea expressed through the different media of each type of artist; others, like Todd Hearon and Maryellen Sakura’s poetry and art of Lake Quabbin, are more complementary.
Fogel, who lives in Walpole, said the idea grew out of a collaboration with the New Hampshire chapter of the Women’s Caucus for the Arts. They put out a call for artists, who then posted samples of their work on the NHWCAN website.
“The poets could look at them and they chose the artists they wanted to work with,” said Fogel. “Not all of them met in person.”
Kate Luppold, director of the Library Arts Center, said she always enjoys working with the Women’s Art Caucus. “They’re a diverse group of women artists across the state who have created a community; it’s really inspiring to work with them,” she said.
“Collaboration is a really important theme for them,” said Luppold. “Each (pair) speaks to the collaboration. I think it’s especially nice that they were chosen by the poet laureate of New Hampshire.”
As poet laureate 2014-19, Fogel doesn’t have prescribed duties, but she does feel she has a mission. “My mission is to bring more poetry to more people, to bring it to their attention.”
In addition to her books of poetry, Fogel has also written “Strange Terrain: A Poetry Handbook for the Reluctant Reader,” a guide for people who want to feel more comfortable with poetry. “There are a lot of really good poets in New Hampshire,” she said. “I think New Hampshire has had more national poets laureate than any other state.
“People say it’s because of the cold winters and the isolation, but who knows? There’s a lot of support for the arts in general in New Hampshire,” said Fogel.
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