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Date: 7/27/2022
AMHERST – The “Poetic Dialogue” sculpture by Michael J. Versi depicting Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost on rocks opposite one another near the Emily Dickinson Museum was reinstalled at the end of April with the two figures on the wrong rocks. The Public Art Commission said during a meeting on July 11 that the reinstallation artist Kamil Peters will be fixing the sculpture after recovering from a medical situation but did not have a timeline.
“The reversal of Robert Frost and Emily [Dickinson] has been very upsetting for some citizens of town and they’ve expressed excitement over this issue to me directly and to Town Hall,” said Commission Chair Shoshona King. “They’ve been calling Town Hall and they’ve been sending me emails and doing some social media storming and I’ve been in contact with the artist from the restoration and he is going to be fixing it. It’s just a matter of timing on his schedule on his ability to do the work that’s involved in that.”
Commission member Dara Wier asked, “Did anybody notice it was switched? I certainly didn’t.”
King said that she had received at least three or four emails from people that were “very into it” and passionate about the fix. She said that some had called it a “misogynistic conspiracy” because now Robert Frost is depicted on the bigger rock, but insisted that it was just an honest mistake and would be fixed as soon as possible.
“I’m glad people pay such close attention, that’s good,” said Commission member Ellen Keiter.
Keiter said that in hindsight someone from the commission or town should have been there in person to oversee the reinstallation.
“Everybody had work to do that day, when it’s a volunteer job and you’ve got work you just can’t make it to all these things,” King said. “I would have liked to have been there myself even though I wasn’t even the chair at the time but I had work because it happened during the workday.”
King said that the process to fix the sculpture would require special tools and skills and was not something they could do themselves. Depending on if they have an updated timeline, they may contact the Department of Public Works to see if they can repair it.