by Peter J. Dudley (Author), Antoinette Lecouteur (Photographer)
together is a book of photography and the poetry it inspired.
Antoinette takes photographs every day, often stopping in mid-step and mid-sentence to capture a moment with her phone. At the beginning of 2022, she snapped a photo of a colorful, delightful birdhouse hanging by the side of a public trail. Peter then wrote a poem using that picture as a prompt.
Although they hadn't intended it in the moment, together they were beginning a year-long, weekly project of 52 photos inspiring 52 poems.
Antoinette's photos are carefully curated from her growing collection and reflect a diversity of everyday experiences. She gets in close to capture a bee as it takes off from collecting pollen, and she pulls back to contrast a bit of found art against a broad vista.
Peter's poems range from humorous light verse to deeper reflections on loss, hope, regret, and meaning. With each poem, he seeks to pull emotions and sentiments the photographs evoke, rarely referring to the actual subject of the picture. The picture of the birdhouse that started it all led to a poem that never mentions the birdhouse.
The photos are individually beautiful, thought-provoking, and delightful. The poems open doors to new perspectives and connections.
Together, each pairing creates its own unique experience.
And each week's pairing marks personal milestones of 2022: the week a loved one passed away, or the week a dear friend's first child was born. These milestones are sometimes reflected overtly in the photo or poem, but often they simply provide background context that informed the choices Antoinette and Peter made in creating this book.
The artists invite you to join them in creating your own experience from the art they've put together. What do you see in Antoinette's photos? What do you feel when reading Peter's poems? The title together isn't just about the pairing of visual with literary, or the paring of two artists. It also means you, with your own background, personality, and life context. How do these speak to you? What do you see in them?