Pictures, poetry exhibit on display at Handley Hall in January

AUGUSTA – An exhibit of pictures and poetry in celebration of the publication of “Duet,” collaboration between University of Maine at Augusta English professor and poet Kay Retzlaff and artist Susan Camp, will be open through January at Richmond Gallery, Handley Hall, 331 Water St.
The exhibit is free and open to the public. “Duet” is a collection of poems and photographs looking at rural life. Camp is a Winterport-based sculptor whose works use plants she grows or gathers.
“Each of us brought our own rural upbringing to the table and played with ways of intertwining the visual and literary notes,” Camp said.
“In the Duet poems, I looked closely at the family and cultural stories I grew up with in an evangelical German Lutheran enclave in Nebraska,” Retzlaff said. “I looked at how those stories and beliefs were fueled by the books we read. These poems look at the limited roles women were allowed to fill in that place at that time, and how women struggled against those restraints.
“Susan and I could connect with our experiences of rural living. Her work showed me that everything in nature leaves a mark, just as humans mark or are marked by one another,” Retzlaff said. “I found myself applying my own lens to some of the ‘story’ we have handed down. Maybe Susan would call that the fungi of the Western literary tradition, such as the story of Eve in the Garden of Eden, or Plato’s Dialogues, stories about America’s founding fathers, or even pop culture music.”
In addition to the exhibit, a poetry reading is scheduled for mid-January, date and time yet to be determined.

PHOTO: “Macro Flower,” by Susan Camp. (Submitted photo)