On this episode of Resounds, Wyoming poet and musician David Romtvedt and his daughter Caitlin Belem Romtvedt discuss the creative process and their influences along the way, including their rich background in Basque music. The two are skilled multi-instrumentalists that have honed their talents at home and abroad.
David, Professor Emeritus for the Creative Writing Program at University of Wyoming, was Wyoming’s poet laureate of from 2003 to 2011. With his wife, Margo Brown, they raised their daughter Caitlin in Buffalo, Wyoming.
In David’s seventh poetry collection, Dilemmas of the Angels, the intersections of the public and private, and the global and local, are explored with a focus on the strangeness of everyday life. Throughout, the bonds and challenges of parenthood and marriage underscore larger questions about one’s place in space and time, as well as the tensions between the worldly and the divine.
Caitlin grew up in a house full of music and plays fiddle and saxophone, to name a few. Her music is a mixture of Latin American and North American music, inspired in part by her travels to Cuba and Brazil, as well as old-style swing, blues, and jazz. Since graduating from Oberlin College, Caitlin has lived in Port Townsend, Washington; Brooklyn, New York; Donostia or San Sebastian, in the Basque Country; and now in Seattle, Washington. She has taught music and dance through private lessons, group workshops, school residencies, and summer camps for both adults and children. Look for her bands, Maracujá, Modern Bygones, and her family’s band, The Fireants, consisting of her parents, David Romtvedt and Margo Brown, Courtney Caplan, and Cindy Baker.
The pair generously provided an example of of their ample talent: