Poetry Reading “Duet” Kay Retzlaff and Susan Camp

Monday November 7^th at 6:30 pm Kay Retzlaff will give a poetry reading in the Abbott Room of the Belfast Free Library. The reading is in conjunction with the November exhibit in the Library’s Kramer Gallery of photographs by Susan Camp and poems by Retzlaff titled, “Duet”.

Duet, a collaboration between the poet Retzlaff and artist Camp, is also a beautiful book published in 2022.

The best way to describe Duet is to use a musical metaphor: artist and poet “riff” on one another’s work or are inspired by a theme raised by the other. Duet is a conversation between artists in different media to reach harmony. While poets often create poems in response to art, Duet is more jazz improv than reactionary. Both artist and poet came to the project to learn more about each other as artists, and to find points of complementarity.

As Susan Camp, a Winterport-based sculptor, says, “This project was a completely new way of working for me. Each of us brought our own descant of rural upbringing to the table and played with ways of intertwining the visual and literary notes.”
Kay Retzlaff, also based in Winterport, says, “The past two years of exile and house arrest caused by COVID-19 gave me a lot more time for writing. The two got together and Duet is the result.