In many ways, poetry is much like art, and poets are not unlike artists.

While a poet crafts with words, an artist uses paint or clay or metal to create a visual image. So, it seemed only natural to interconnect the perspective of poets and artists in a unique exhibit, "The Handprint Identity Project: An Exchange between Artists and Poets," which opens Saturday at Elizabethtown College.

Conceived by Milt Friedly, art professor at Elizabethtown College, the exhibit is rooted in the sorrow of Sept. 11, when Friedly was deeply saddened by reports that bodies could only be identified by the smallest fragments of bone or clothing.

"I recall how they spoke of discerning life through the smallest of remnants," says Friedly.

His response was visual. He is an artist, after all. Friedly sculpted a hand as he pounded the clay with his own angry, heartbroken fist. Then it dawned on him that there was significance in his "handprint." It was his mark.

That evolved into the realization that artists respond differently than poets. That difference is essentially the difference between image and words. Yet, as Friedly came to realize, both forms of creation evoke feelings and represent passions. Indeed, the work of artists and poets can go hand in hand.

"In an exhibit that focuses on identity, the hand remains a powerful tool for affection and expression, and so the hand became a central theme of this project," says Friedly.

In "The Handprint Identity Project," there are 10 artists and 10 poets who have been paired by Friedly. He made the pairings with an element of gut instinct, anticipating the creative collaboration that would result from his choices. As in the chicken-or-egg question, would the artist inspire the poet or vice versa?

For Lancaster artist Carol Galligan, who was paired with poet Carmine Sarracino of Providence, R.I., the words of Sarracino evoked Galligan's brilliantly colored abstract painting in hot oranges and reds. Galligan explained that she was excited about the idea of handprints, but it wasn't until Sarracino read his poem "This Day" aloud to her that the image came to light.

Those words were:

Snow is driving thickly down,

winding round the trunks of oaks,

covering leathery leaves on the ground.

Blown down the black ice of the river,

White patches gather, swirl, regather.

Heavy flakes melt on the slates

Around chimneys, smoke-plumed.

This is Providence.

As Sarracino says, "I tried to weave together threads whose pattern would only be visible from a very broad perspective…And how the immigrant's dream of America as a paradise could figure in my own sense of the ordinary as miraculous — the immigrant neighborhoods of Federal Hill, where I grew up, as — Providence!"

Such pairings have resulted in word pictures as intriguing as E. Ethelbert Miller's: "I keep losing my identity in the news. Now I'm Haitian and Palestinian. I live in Iraq, Pakistan and Kenya. I'm a young boy running down the street with a gun. I'm a baby with a rock. There is a fire in my eye and a smile on my face. I'm a photojournalist shooting what I see. The pictures are always the same. Anger. Hatred. Smoke and blood. The world is a terrible place to live. I want to run away from violence, cross a border. But where are my papers? Passport? Who am I? I keep forgetting. "

"I wrote "God holding a camera and waiting for us to smile" to connect the dots I kept seeing in images from around the world," says Miller, who was paired with artist Kebedech Tekleab, a woman from Ethiopia who now teaches at Savannah University.

As Friedly explained, the artists and poets drew on their own experiences in life, pulling out words and images from each other. Although he had imaged what "might" happen when they collaborated, he was stunned by what actually happened.

"Whether in a fist or held open, the hand is a powerful way to express emotion," says Friedly.

The exhibition was co-directed by Miller and poet Leslie McGrath of Stonington, Conn. The 10 poets and 10 visual artists worked together for a year. They represent a broad diversity of ethnicities, native homelands, and religions.

The other poets included in the project are Shirley Ainoo of Gathersburg, Md., Scott Cairns of the University of Missouri, Jennifer Foerster of San Francisco, Calif., Sandra Kohler of Boston, Mass., David Mura of Minneapolis, Minn., Julia Spicher Kasdorf of Penn State and Ravi Shankar of Central Connecticut State University.

Visual artists include Stacey Carter of San Francisco, Calif., Bivas Chaudhuri of Brooklyn, N.Y., Carol Cole of Philadelphia, Pa., Donald Forsythe of Messiah College, Fred Metz of Seattle, Wash., David Reif of the University of Wyoming, and Leslie Kaufman of Philadelphia, Pa.

The project also involved two Elizabethtown graduates, artist Thomas Yukovic '08 and poet Pierce Hibbs '07. The art exhibition is curated by Friedly and Yurkovic. The poetry collection is curated by Miller and Hibbs.

"The Handprint Identity Project: An Exchange Between Artists and Poets"
Opens Sat.Cont. through Dec. 15

Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-8 p.m.

Sat. and Sun. 1-5 p.m. Free

Hess Gallery, Zug Hall

and Lyet Gallery,

Leffler Chapel and

Performance Center

Elizabethtown College

361-1212
www.etown.edu