A Near Memoir: new poems (Beliveau Books) is launching on Earth Day, April 22! Want a taste of my new work? Four poems from A Near Memoir (“Drawing Conclusions”, “A Convoluted Etymology of the Course Not Taken”, “Celebrating Souwesto Trees” & “You There”) appear in Beliveau Review, Vol. 2 No. 2 Issue 5, out now on https://beliveaubooks.wixsite.com/home/magazines.
National Poetry Month Readings
Sunday, April 18, 4pm EDT. Our group reading from the anthology, Voicing Suicide, is hosted by Josie di Sciascio-Andrews with Daniel G Scott, Editor. Spread the word and join us if you can. Here is the link: meet.google.com/pwz-yqew-fiu Contact: <voicingsuicide@gmail.com>.
Sunday, April 25, 2021, 1 PM EDT. National Poetry Month zoom and launch of Femmes de Parole/Women of their Word, edited by Nancy R Lange. The readers for Femmes de parole / Women of their word on the 25th will be Mireille Cliche (QC), Catherine Fortin (QC), Louise Bernice Halfe, Penn Kemp, Nancy R Lange(QC), Genevieve Letarte, (QC), Sharon Thesen and Sheri-D Wilson! Contact: rappelparolecreation@hotmail.com.
Happy National Poetry Month, NPM2021! These readings are sponsored by the League @CanadianPoets!
“Drawing Conclusions”, “A Convoluted Etymology of the Course Not Taken”, “Celebrating Souwesto Trees” and “You There”. Beliveau Review, Vol. 2 No. 2 Issue 5, Spring 2021. https://beliveaubooks.wixsite.com/home/magazines.
“To Carry the Heart of Community Wherever You Find Yourself”. Sage-ing With Creative Spirit, Grace and Gratitude, http://www.sageing.ca/sageing36.html, P. 12. Number 36, Spring 2021.
“What Matters”, “Studies in Anticipation”, “Hope the Thing”, Possible Utopias: the Wordsfest Eco Zine, Issue 6. http://www.wordsfest.ca/zine, March 2021.
February, 2021. “We are gonna begin writing sometime when…” from “Re:Solution”. Performed with Anne Anglin. Sound Poetry DJ mix on https://www.mixcloud.com/spoken_matter/sound-poetry-mix-tape/. Editors, Andreas Bülhoff & Marc Matter, <andreasbuelhoff@googlemail.com
April 18. NPM. Readings from “Voicing Suicide”, an anthology edited by Daniel G. Scott. Contact: <voicingsuicide@gmail.com>, organizer Josie Di Sciascio Andrews <j_andrews@sympatico.ca>
April, 2021. NPM Zoom and launch of Femmes de Parole/Women of their Word, edited by Nancy R Lange. Readings: Penn Kemp and Sharon Thesen. Contact: rappelparolecreation@hotmail.com.
“To Carry the Heart of Community Wherever You Find Yourself”. Sage-ing With Creative Spirit, Grace and Gratitude, http://www.sageing.ca/sageing36.html, P. 12. Number 36, Spring 2021.
“What Matters”, “Studies in Anticipation”, “Hope the Thing”, Possible Utopias: the Wordsfest Eco Zine, Issue 6. http://www.wordsfest.ca/zine, March 2021.
“Drawing Conclusions”, “A Convoluted Etymology of the Course Not Taken”, “Celebrating Souwesto Trees” and “You There”. Beliveau Review, Vol. 2 No. 2 Issue 5, May, 2021. https://beliveaubooks.wixsite.com/home/magazines.
“What we did not know in 1972. What we know now.” Resistance Anthology. Sue Goyette, editor. University of Regina Press, Spring 2021.
“Re:Solution”, performed with Anne Anglin. Sound Poetry DJ mix. Limited edition audio cassette. Editors, Andreas Bülhoff & Marc Matter, <andreasbuelhoff@googlemail.com
“Weather Vane, Whether Vain, Whither and Thither” and “Black, White and Red All Over Town”, An Avian Alphabet. Edited by Susan McCaslin, with woodcut prints by Edith Krause.
March 8, 2021. 7 – 8:30 p.m. “CHOOSE TO CHALLENGE: Finding Common Ground Through Dialogue”, Featuring keynote address by Waneek Horn-Miller. Celebrating International Women’s Day at the 2021 Hanycz Lecture/International Women’s Day event. 8:15 p.m. Penn’s reading, commissioned by Brescia University College, London, is sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Register here for the whole event (https://hopin.com/events/choose-to-challenge-finding-common-ground-through-dialogue?bblinkid=248579307&bbemailid=28900794&bbejrid=1864748878. Contact: Linda, lpalme9@uwo.ca.
“Re:Solution”, performed with Anne Anglin. Sound Poetry DJ mix for https://www.mixcloud.com/. Limited edition audio cassette. Editors, Andreas Bülhoff & Marc Matter, <andreasbuelhoff@googlemail.com
Painting by Jim Kemp in Museum London collection, for 80mL
February 27, 2021.11:00am EST. “Craft Bites!” Live Zoom reading and discussion with Sarah Adams. Penn reads from The Triumph of Teresa Harris. Sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Moderator, Mindy Doherty Griffiths, mindy@playwrightsguild.ca
February, 2021. “Re:Solution”, performed with Anne Anglin. Sound Poetry DJ mix for https://www.mixcloud.com/. Limited edition audio cassette. Editors, Andreas Bülhoff & Marc Matter, <andreasbuelhoff@googlemail.com
February 27, 2021.11:00am EST. “Craft Bites!” Live Zoom reading and discussion with Sarah Adams. Penn reads from The Triumph of Teresa Harris. Sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Moderator, Mindy Doherty Griffiths, mindy@playwrightsguild.ca
March 8, 2021. 7 – 8:30 p.m. “CHOOSE TO CHALLENGE: Finding Common Ground Through Dialogue”, Featuring keynote address by Waneek Horn-Miller. Celebrating International Women’s Day at the 2021 Hanycz Lecture/International Women’s Day event. 8:15 p.m. Penn’s reading, commissioned by Brescia University College, London, is sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Register here for the whole event (https://hopin.com/events/choose-to-challenge-finding-common-ground-through-dialogue?bblinkid=248579307&bbemailid=28900794&bbejrid=1864748878. Contact: Linda, lpalme9@uwo.ca.
April, 2021. NPM Zoom and launch of Femmes de Parole/Women of their Word, edited by Nancy R Lange. Contact: rappelparolecreation@hotmail.com.
“Becoming”: a poem of 80 words matched with Jim Kemp’s painting for 80mL Exhibition to celebrate Museum London’s 80th Birthday. http://museumlondon.ca/. Contact: 80museumlondon@gmail.com
Forthcoming Publications
“To Carry the Heart of Community Wherever You Find Yourself”. “To Carry the Heart of Community Wherever You Find Yourself”. Sage-ing With Creative Spirit, Grace and Gratitude, http://www.sageing.ca. Number 38, Spring 2021.
“What we did not know in 1972. What we know now.” Resistance Anthology. Sue Goyette, editor. University of Regina Press, Spring 2021.
“Re:Solution”, performed with Anne Anglin. Sound Poetry DJ mix. Limited edition audio cassette. Editors, Andreas Bülhoff & Marc Matter, <andreasbuelhoff@googlemail.com
“Weather Vane, Whether Vain, Whither and Thither” and “Black, White and Red All Over Town”, An Avian Alphabet. Edited by Susan McCaslin, with woodcut prints by Edith Krause.
Painting by Jim Kemp in Museum London collection, for 80mL
Jim Kemp at work
Forthcoming Publications
Spring 2021. “What we did not know in 1972. What we know now.” Resistance Anthology. Sue Goyette, editor. University of Regina Press, spring 2021.
Superb Canadian writing highly recommended, grouped idiosyncratically
First, by women
Pairing books by Indigenous Writers: Michelle Good, FiveLittle Indians; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost, Islands of Decolonial Love and Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies.
Pairing pandemic novels: Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars; Saleema Nawaz’s Songs for the End of the World and Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu.
Pairing BC novelists: Shaena Lambert’s Petra Maria Reva; Good Citizens Need Not Fear; Caroline Adderson’s A Russian Sister and Anakana Schofield’s Bina.
Pairing books on relationship: Christy Ann Conlon’s Watermark; Annabel Lyon, Consent; Lynn Coady, Watching You Without Me; Shani Mootoo, Polar Vortex; Vivek Shraya, The Subtweet; Frances Itani, The Company We Keep.
Pairing Westerns:Gil Adamson’s Ridgerunner; Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel; Helen Humphreys’s Rabbit Foot Bill and Kate Pullinger’s Forest Green.
Pairing fiction set abroad: Aislinn Hunter’s The Certainties. Janie Chang’s The Library of Legends; Sarah Leipciger’s Coming Up For Air; Marianne Micros’s Eye; Louise Penny’s All the Devils Are Here; Lisa Robertson’s Baudelaire Fractals. Anne Simpson’s Speechless AND Farzana Doctor’s magnificent Seven.
Non-Fiction Carol Bishop-Gwyn, Art and Rivalry: The Marriage of Mary and Christopher Pratt Lorna Crozier, Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) Naomi Klein, On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal Theresa Kishkan, Euclid’s Orchard & Other Essays Amanda Leduc, Disfigured Susan McCaslin & J.S. Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer, Reading still matters: what the research reveals about reading, libraries, and community Susan Vande Griek and Mark Hoffmann, Hawks Kettle, Puffins Wheel Elizabeth Waterston, Railway Ties 1888-1920 Jody Wilson-Raybould, From where I stand: rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a stronger Canada
Awards The Writers’ Trust Award goes to Gil Adamson for Ridgerunner! The Giller goes to Souvankham Thammavongsa for How to Pronounce Knife The Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize goes to Armand Garnet Ruffo
Reading Canadian men Billy-Ray Belcourt, A history of my brief body Dennis Bock, The Good German Michael Christie, Greenwood: A Novel of a Family Tree in a Dying Forest Desmond Cole, The Skin We’re In David Frum, Trumpocalypse William Gibson, Agency Rawi Hage, Beirut Hellfire Society Thomas King, Indians on Vacation Thomas King, Obsidian: A DreadfulWater Mystery Kurt Palka, The hour of the fox: a novel Andrew Pyper, The residence Iain Reid, I’m Thinking of Ending Things Robin Robertson, The long take: a Noir Narrative Jesse Thistle, From the Ashes Clive Thompson, Coders Richard Wagamese, Keeper’n Me
Back to Poetry, Canadian and Beyond Madhur Anand, A new index for predicting catastrophes: poems Margaret Atwood, Dearly Adèle Barclay, Renaissance normcore Gary Barwin, For it is a PLEASURE and a SURPRISE to Breathe: new & selected Poems Heather Birrell, Float and scurry Jericho Brown, The Tradition Lucas Crawford, The high line scavenger hunt Amber Dawn, My Art is Killing Me Dom Domanski, Bite down little whisper Klara du Plessis, Ekke Nathan Dueck, A very special episode / brought to you by Nathan Dueck Chantal Gibson, How She Read Julie Hartley, Deboning a dragon Karen Houle, The Grand River Watershed: a folk ecology Patricia Keeney, Orpheus in Our World Kaie Kellough, Magnetic equator Canisia Lubrin, The Dyzgraph*st Daphne Marlatt, Intertidal: The Collected Earlier Poems, 1968 – 2008 Jane Munro, Glass Float Harold Rhenisch, The Spoken World Robin Richardson, Knife throwing through self-hypnosis: poems Anne Simpson, Strange attractor: poems John Elizabeth Stintzi, Junebat Moez Surani, Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real?
Anthologies Best Canadian poetry 2019 Measures of astonishment: poets on poetry / presented by the League of Canadian Poets Caroline Adderson, editor. The Journey prize stories: the best of Canada’s new writers Nyla Matuk, editor. Resisting Canada: an anthology of poetry Adam Sol, How a poem moves: a field guide for readers of poetry
Beloved Books on Spiritual Ecology Tim Dee, Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass Diana Beresford-Kroeger, To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest Robert Macfarlane, Underland Richard Powers, The Overstory Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life
Deepest, Longest and most Transformative Read of 2020 Peter Kingsley, Reality, Catafalque Press, 2020 (and Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom)
International Reads John Banville, Snow Neil Gaiman, American Gods: The moment of the storm. 3 Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings Lily King, Writers and Lovers Natsuo Kirino, The goddess chronicle E. J Koh, The magical language of others: A memoir Raven Leilani, Luster Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights William Maxwell, So long, see you tomorrow Ian McEwan, Machines like me: and people like you Ian McEwan, Cockroach Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, Hamilton: the revolution David Mitchell, Utopia Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere Naomi Shihab Nye, Cast away: poems for our time Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet and Judith Tommy Pico, Feed Samantha Power, The Education of an Idealist Omid Safi, Radical love: teachings from the Islamic mystical tradition Jake Skeets, Eyes bottle dark with a mouthful of flowers / poems by Jake Skeets Mirabai Starr, Wild mercy: living the fierce and tender wisdom of the women mystics Natasha Trethewey, Memorial Drive Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough Ruth Ware, The Turn of the Key Jennifer Weiner, Big Summer Niall Williams, This is Happiness Bob Woodward, Rage
About to read (sometime, soon-ish) Madhur Anand, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart Marianne Apostolides, I can’t get you out of my mind: a novel Nina Berkhout, Why Birds Sing Carol Bruneau, Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis Cathy Marie Buchanan, Daughter of Black Lake Catherine Bush, Blaze Island Louise Carson, The Cat Possessed Dede Crane, Madder Woman Lorna Crozier, The House the Spirit Builds Francesca Ekwuyasi, Butter Honey Pig Bread Heather Haley, Skookum Raven Catherine Hernandez, Crosshairs Natalie Jenner, The Jane Austen Society Shari Lapena, The End of Her Jessica J. Lee, Two trees make a forest: travels among Taiwan’s mountains & coasts in search of my family’s past Tanis MacDonald, Mobile Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic Noor Naga, Washes, Prays C.L. Polk, The Midnight Bargain Damian Rogers, An Alphabet for Joanna: A Portrait of My Mother in 26 Fragments Johanna Skibsrud, Island Susan Swan, The Dead Celebrities Club Emily Urquhart, The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father, and Me Natalie Zina Walschots, Hench: a novel
AND… Jordan Abel, Nishga André Alexis, The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction Bill Arnott, Gone Viking John Barton, Lost Family David Bergen, Here the Dark Wade Davis, Magdalena: river of dreams Cory Doctorow, Radicalized Cory Doctorow, Attack Surface Gary Geddes, Out of the ordinary: politics, poetry and narrative Steven Heighton, Reaching Mithymna: among the volunteers and refugees on Lesvos Kaie Kellough, Dominoes at the Crossroads David A. Robertson, Black Water Mark Sampson, All the Animals on Earth J.R. (Tim) Struthers (Editor), Alice Munro Everlasting: Essays on Her Works II Mark Truscott, Branches Ian Williams, Reproduction
Most of these books have come to me through London Public Library, now celebrating 125 years! Thank you! Others came from Indie bookstores and friends. None from Amazon.
“For Penn Kemp, poetry is magic made manifest. While her subjects are varied, and her interests and approaches have evolved over the years, Kemp has always understood the power of spoken word to evoke emotion, shift consciousness, and shape the world. Drawing on a syncretic blend of spiritual philosophy informed by Alchemy, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other wisdom traditions, Kemp’s work is imminent and transcendent, embodied and cerebral. The words on the page produce certain effects, while the voices in the air produce others altogether.”
New #SpokenWebPod episode coming next Monday, Dec 7. Come to our Listening Party to experience “Sounds of Trance Formation: An Interview with Penn Kemp.”
Monday, December 7, 2020 at 5 PM EST – 7 PM EST Hosted by SpokenWeb
Join us to listen and discuss #SpokenWebPod episode Sounds of Trance Formation: An Interview with Penn Kemp
We will gather virtually to listen together at 5pm ET and share our reactions in a Twitter conversation. This will be followed by a 6pm ET Q&A with Episode Producer Nick Beauchesne and featured guest Penn Kemp. You are invited to join for the entire event or at 6pm ET for just the Q&A.
Listening Party Zoom Link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/83778515727…Meeting ID: 837 7851 5727 Password: resonate One tap mobile +16473744685,,83778515727#,,,,0#,,71824394# Canada
Join the Twitter Conversation: You are invited to follow @SpokenWebCanada and #SpokenWebPod on Twitter and join the conversation during the event as we listen together. Tweet at us with #SpokenWebPod and share your listening experience: what moments jump out to you? what sounds resonate with your experience?
And the Giller goes to Souvankham Thammavongsa for How to Pronounce Knife! Congratulations! And Congratulations as well to the other finalists!
Superb writing that I highly recommend, grouped here idiosyncratically.
Pairing Westerns: Gil Adamson’s Ridgerunner; Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel; Helen Humphreys’s Rabbit Foot Bill and Kate Pullinger’s Forest Green.
Pairing work set abroad:Shaena Lambert’s Petra; Janie Chang’s The Library of Legends; Louise Penny’s All the Devils Are Here. Lisa Robertson, Baudelaire Fractals. Pairing Caroline Adderson’s A Russian Sister and Sarah Leipciger, Coming Up For Air. AND Farzana Doctor’s Seven.
Pairing pandemic novels: Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars; Saleema Nawaz’s Songs for the End of the World and Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu.
Pairing books on relationship by Annabel Lyon, Consent; Lynn Coady, Watching You Without Me; Shani Mootoo, Polar Vortex; Frances Itani, The Company We Keep.
Pairing books by Indigenous Writers: Michelle Good, FiveLittle Indians; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost
Memoir: Lorna Crozier, Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats)
Sans pareil: Naomi Klein, On Fire. Not a novel: I wish it were!
About to read (sometime, soon-ish):
Marianne Apostolides, I can’t get you out of my mind: a novel Carol Bruneau, Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis Cathy Marie Buchanan, The Day the Falls Stood Still Cathy Marie Buchanan, Daughter of Black Lake Catherine Bush, Blaze Island Catherine Hernandez, Crosshairs Maria Reva, Good Citizens Need Not Fear Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies Elizabeth Waterston, Railway Ties 1888-1920
Hoping to read: (Attention, London Library! Every other book listed here is in your collection. Please take the hint…) Dede Crane, Madder Woman Lorna Crozier, The House the Spirit Builds
Celebrating Wordsfest, tuning in to MORE Literary Arts!
Then back to new poetry. And back to writing…
Feature image: Daniela Sneppova Photo of me age 7: Jim Kemp
A challenge indeed, to read a poetry book a day throughout August!
It’s only now in preparing this list that I’ll see if I reached 31 books. Included here are several anthologies of poetry and the very poetic novel, Baudelaire’s Fractal. I’ve also read books that I had started earlier, a couple that I reread, and several that I have not yet finished! Some I’d been meaning to read forever. There’s always #SealeySeptember!
How to group the list? Some are from my own collection; some, gifts from friends. Many others arrived from the Library. The books came in clusters: Canadian; writers of colour, feminist, contemporary. I decided to go alphabetically. I didn’t have time to include comments or quotes, though a running commentary is ongoing in my head. Pals, if I haven’t included you here, are you in my blog for National Poetry Month? Check out https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/2020/04/02/reading-and-recommending-poems-for-national-poetry-month-2020/.
Here’s thelist:
bill bissett, Air 10-11-12
Billy-Ray Belcourt: NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field
Di Brandt, Glitter & Fall
Ariane Blackman, The River Doesn’t Stop
Allan Briesmaster, River Neither
Jillian Christmas, the gospel of breaking
Margaret Christakos, charger
Tom Cull, Bad Animals
Ellen Jaffe, Skinny-Dipping with the Muse
Patricia Keeney, First Woman
John B. Lee, The Half-Way Tree
D.A. Lockhart, Devil in the Woods
Alice Major, Welcome to the Anthropocene
Daphne Marlatt, Seven Glass Bowls
Susan McCaslin, Painter, Poet, Mountain: After Cézanne
Susan McMaster, Haunt
Bruce Meyer, McLuhan’s Canary
Stephen Morrissey, A Poet’s Journey: on poetry and what it means to be a poet
Colin Morton, Coastlines of the Archipelago
Miguel Neneve, En los Caminos de la Miradas
Catherine Owen, Riven
Harold Rhenisch, Winging Home: a palette of birds
Canisia Lubrin, The Dyzgraph*st
Jay MillAr, The Ghosts of Jay MillAr
Joni Mitchell, Morning Glory On the Vine
Lisa Robertson, Baudelaire Fractals
Sharon Thesen, The Receiver
Phyllis Webb, Peacock Blue
Anthologies 29. Kim Maltman, editor. The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2018 30. Nyla Matuk, Resisting Canada: an anthology of poetry with an Introduction by Nyla Matuk 31. Adam Sol, How a poem moves: a field guide for readers of poetry
Thanks for such an inspiring initiative, Nicole Sealey! @Nic_Sealey
I’m so grateful to Joe Belanger and the Free Press for supporting the arts and local artists.
Poetry really can console and articulate our emotions in the pandemonium of pandemic. But imagine, a local newspaper publishing new poems! and these three of mine are so beautifully laid out with room for the poems to breathe! But, hey, embrace me from 6 feet away, okay? 🙂
BELANGER: It’s time to embrace London’s poet laureate, Penn Kemp, and all artists
It’s funny the things you think of when the going gets tough.
London poet Penn Kemp explores the pandemic in her writing as the country has a muted celebration of Poetry Month. JOE BELANGER
It’s funny the things you think of when the going gets tough.
Like everyone else in recent weeks, I could feel the sun’s warmth, see the green tips coming through the garden soil and welcome the crocuses.
It’s spring arriving, yet there wasn’t a big smile on my face; no, just the tension of uncertainty and foreboding that goes hand-in-hand with the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Then I heard Penn Kemp’s voice on the telephone and a smile arrived.
I can’t help it. London’s first poet laureate and one of this country’s great writing talents always offers up some delightful word treats that usually provoke a smile, sometimes laughter and even tears that eventually give way to serious pondering of the words, ideas and observations she so expertly writes on paper.
I should have anticipated the phone call because April is poetry month and, more often than not, a chance for me to reconnect with Kemp, who has written more than 30 books of poetry and drama and is renowned as a spoken word performer.
Penn Kemp is a perpetual reminder to me of why we need our artists and I couldn’t wait to find out how she’s been keeping, but even more excited to find out what she’s doing.
“Life as usual for a writer, I’m at home,” said Kemp, for whom a degree of isolation is a natural consequence of her art.
“But we feel it all so deeply. The irony and the consolation or disparity in it all is spring’s arrival – the return of warmth against the depths of sadness and sorrow of so many people passing. There’s so much information coming at us, we’re inundated with so much grief. For me, poetry can console.”
And then I read her new words, in her new poem titled, What We Remember, words this horror has provoked that grabbed my heart and told me I am not alone. The opening stanza drawing tears . . .
So many are leaving the planet and yet
are with us, still and still.
How they hover,
the lost, the bewildered, the wild ones!
Clearly life during a pandemic hasn’t escaped Kemp’s gaze or understanding; it has provoked her muse to sing.
There are two more poems, each with compelling observations, perhaps even provocations. It is what Kemp must do, even though she won’t get paid this month when she is often on tour to celebrate her art. It is why I feel so compelled to write about our artists.
“I so believe in the power of community yet everything we relied upon has shifted — to ‘host’ has become a negative and even ‘positive’ (test) has become a negative,” said Kemp.
“What the arts really does is offer a vehicle for the expression of emotion, whether we’re creating or we’re a recipient, you can share in the collective expression of sorrow and suffering and sense that we are together, that humanity is facing this together.”
And I smile again because I don’t feel so alone.
I’m feeling hopeful again because the power of the arts continues to churn, inspiring and, yes, comforting.
In times of crises we count on the arts for respite,
relief, relaxation and articulation of our response
and reaction to a compounded new normal. As if
unknowns have not always been nearby, hovering
at edge of sight, beyond reach but closing in now,
still unknown. All our questions rise without reply.
How long.
The difference is now we know for once what we
did not know, can’t know, don’t want to face, hid
under cover. But special masks hand-sewn as if to
protect let us feel we are doing our bit, let us act in
dispelling disconnect, overwhelm of circumstance.
Art helps us stitch together disparity or discontent.
This poem will not reveal statistics, won’t describe
missing medical gear, what remains undelivered,
how many gravesites prepared, how much suffering—
how many gone. We have aps for that, as numbers
grow beyond belief but not beyond hope nor help.
Frontline workers, be praised. May all you need be
yours now. May salaries be raised. May you rest
till the rest is easy. May your harvest be in health
not death, not calculated statistics of raised risk.
Do care for yourselves just as you care for others.
We wait, sequestered, connected, isolated, missing
touch, missing what we used to call normal, what
we used to do long ago just last month. We wait for
the weight to lift, to remember we are safe at home,
not stuck. We also serve who stay indoors and wait.
May home be our haven. May we shelter in place,
in peace of mind. Confinement’s just fine for now,
home stead, home stayed and schooled in the new.
Mind the gap, the gulf between then and now as
broadcasts sweep over: they are not forever. Turn
off the hourly news. Tune in to spring joys instead.
We can gather in the power of dandelion greens.
Warmer weather is not another postponed elective.
Even though last night, lightning and hail the size
of loonies lit up the sky at the pink full moon, no
frogs are raining and forsythia has not forsaken us.
Toads are peeping, myrtle is purpling and the sun,
sweet sun, is warming our faces as forget-me-nots
pop their determined way up through damp earth.
What is essential, what urgent when baselines shift?
Spontaneous dance parties and web performance
lighten fatigue, the philosopher’s moral dilemma.
The consolation of poetry is the resilience of words
given to comfort or challenge, compare and contrast.
What is grief but love unexpressed? What is love but
expression? Giving, not in, not out, but forth, giving
over to you. The game’s a match. Love won. Love all.
Penn Kemp
April 8, 2020
What We’ll Remember
How first scylla sky shimmers
against the tundra swan’s flight
west and north, north north west.
How many are leaving the planet and yet
are with us, still and still forever.
How they linger,
the lost, the bewildered, the wild ones!
Though tears come easily these days,
we too hover over the greening land
as spring springs brighter than ever
since stacks are stilled and the pipe
lines piping down.
When the peace pipe is lit
and sweetgrass replaces
smog— when the fog of pollution
lifts and channels clear—
Earth take a long breath
and stretches over aeons to come
and aeons past.
Penn Kemp
No Reruns, No Returns
for les revenants
Those who died once from influenza
a century ago, who now are pulled to
a hell realm of eternal return—are you
repeating, reliving the hex of time as if
doomed to replicate the old story you
already lived through? Once is enough.
No need to hover. You have suffered
plenty. You’ve loved and lost all there
is to lose. You have won. You’re one
with all that is. Retreat now to your own
abode. Return home, spirits. You’re no
longer needed here. You are no longer.
Although we honour you and thank
you and remember you each and all,
all those who’ve been called back, called
up from dimensions we can only guess at—
caught in the Great War and carried away
or carried off in the aftermath of influenza—
by this spell, we tell you to go back to
your own time, out of time. Just in time.
May you depart. We don’t know, how can
we tell? where your home is. It’s not here.
Know this virus is not yours. Know this
war is not yours. You are here in our era
by error, by slippage, a rip. You’ve mis-
taken the signage, the spelling in wrong
turns. Now return, by this charm, retreat.
You are dispelled, dismissed, dismantled,
released to soar free from the trance of time.
May you travel well. May you fly free.
Books are the best gift for a time of self-isolation! A shout-out to Canadian small press publishers and indie bookshops. Long may you thrive! Your health all round!
Here are my recent offerings for your wish list, to share with poetry- and play-loving pals.
If you order the books from me, I’ll sign them for you!
Penn Kemp
525 Canterbury Road
London Ontario N6G 2N5
pennkemp@gmail.com
“London poet Penn Kemp helps explore identity at Wordsfest”
The Thames River moves swiftly through London’s Kilally Meadows, a turn in the river at the end of Windermere Road that is eating away at the bank, carving a new history in its journey.
It’s here on the Thames, two kilometres from her childhood home that poet, spoken word performer and playwright Penn Kemp has found inspiration that culminated in River Revery, her 31st book of poetry and drama.
It will be launched Saturday at the sixth annual Words, London’s literary and creative arts festival, also known as Wordsfest, being held at Museum London Friday through Sunday.
Wordsfest will feature 40 Canadian authors, poets, writers, songwriters and other literary stars. It’s a “celebration of creative ideas, artistic expression and cultural diversity,” where the concept of identity will be the theme.
“The Thames River is the very centre of London – look at the forks downtown – the very heart of the city, the flow, the current and the influence,” said Kemp, sitting under a sunny sky days ago a few metres from the river.
In Kemp’s new book is the poem Riparian, inspired by the place where we had just been walking and this excerpt reflects our view:
Woodcocks drum in May at Kilally Meadows as
mallard mothers introduce their pride to water.
Cattails sieve sediment in the marsh. Let alone.
Carrying on. There a dead ash stands undercut by
spring current sweeping without resistance among
dangled roots. On topmost branch, the local osprey,
intent on a shoal of suckers suspended in shadow,
catches sunlight, breast gleaming, before plummeting
with curved claws to pluck family breakfast.”
On Saturday at 1 p.m., Kemp will be in conversation with Diana Beresford-Kroeger, an author, medical biochemist and botanist who wrote the forward for River Revery.
Beresford-Kroeger is the author of several books, including To Speak for the Trees, released in September. She was named a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 2011 and named by the society as one of 25 women explorers of Canada.
The Thames, its tributaries and the land it flows through is the land of Kemp’s childhood, where she wondered and dreamed and played and ran and walked and rode a bike.
The river meanders through her work, including her plays about Teresa Harris, The Dream Life of Teresa Harris (2013) and The Triumph of Teresa Harris (2017).
Harris was born in 1839, youngest of the 12 children of Royal Navy Capt. John Harris, one of the city’s earliest settlers and builder of Eldon House. The house was owned by the family until 1960 when it was donated to the city as a museum, while much of its property along the Thames became Harris Park.
Teresa, an independent minded adventurer, inspires not only Kemp’s work but also her heart.
River Revery, dedicated to Kemp’s grandchildren, is not just a book of poems; it’s a collaboration with London artist Mary McDonald, who provided photos and animations to support Kemp’s words. The website riverrevery.ca includes the full breadth of the work, which was first revealed at last year’s Wordsfest.
Kemp is also a wealth of knowledge about the Thames. She tells me the Thames is called Deshkan Ziibi (Antler River) in the Ojibwe language, but it was named by Lt.-Gov. John Graves Simcoe after its British namesake – a name itself rooted in the ancient Celtic language and meaning the Dark One.
“I really think we need to return to listening to what the river and the land are telling us,” said Kemp, a lifelong environmentalist and activist.
“Ever since I was a tiny child, I’ve tried to articulate the mystery not expressed in words – the river, trees, the birds – . . . and I’m still trying to translate the mystery. I believe if I’m listening I can hear one maple.”
Kemp gets irritated with anthropomorphism of nature by people making it appear and behave as a human being even though the rivers, trees, animals and land are distinct entities.
“The land is not limited to our sensibilities or understanding and comprehension,” said Kemp.
“That’s where the listening comes in . . . We’ve been trained to project, transfer our humanness values to nature and the truth is nature is so much longer lived. It has its own life. It breathes so much longer than we do. We have to get back to honouring the land as the Indigenous People did before colonialism.”
Kemp said the Thames is more than a “metaphor” of the identity of London. “It’s the reality of our identity, staring us in the face, asking for recognition, to be honoured and valued, not just to be used,” she said.
Wordsfest artistic director Joshua Lambier said the festival’s theme of identity is about “re-imagining Souwesto” referring to name coined by the late London artist Greg Curnoe for Southwestern Ontario.
Lambier said identity will be explored from a variety of angles, including the “notion of the Forest City,” which Kemp and Beresford-Kroeger will explore, and the relationship between “creativity and identity,” which a panel hosted by award-winning author Nino Ricci, the Alice Munro Chair in Creativity at Western University, will discuss Saturday at 4 p.m.
“The great thing about Wordsfest is the diversity of the content, so there should be something for everyone,” said Lambier.
“We try to bring the Western University campus downtown to the people of London who want to meet and see national authors, but also our local writers who will all be discussing new ideas, new books, new artistic approaches.”
Joe Belanger, The London Free Press, October 31, 2019
GOING WITH THE FLOW: Kemp a natural at Wordsfest C1
London poet Penn Kemp marks Women’s Day with call to action
London poet Penn Kemp will deliver the inaugural International Women’s Day poem, Choose to Challenge, at Brescia University College’s fourth Dr. Colleen Hanycz Leadership Lecture Monday, March 8, 2021. (Mike Hensen/The London Free Press)
Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas pedal in the race for gender equality.
That’s the message from London’s foremost poet a year into the pandemic, ahead of International Women’s Day celebrations.
“It’s essential to keep working,” said Penn Kemp, who will deliver the inaugural Women’s Day poem for Brescia University College, Canada’s only university-level women’s college, during its fourth Dr. Colleen Hanycz Leadership Lecture Monday.
“Gender equality has not been reached. I think equality has slipped (during the pandemic) because so many people are living in isolation and it is women who are shouldering more of the burden, staying home with the children and taking care of the elderly.
“The need for a sense of equality is more important than ever, yet I think equality has slipped over the last year, we haven’t gained, we’ve lost income and that sense of equality.”
The title of Kemp’s poem is “Choose To Challenge”, reflecting the theme of the virtual celebration, Choose To Challenge: Finding Common Ground Through Dialogue. A keynote address will be delivered by Olympian, activist and broadcaster Waneek Horn-Millera, a member of the Canadian women’s water polo team that won Pan American Games gold in 1999 and the second Mohawk woman ever to compete at the Olympics at the 2000 Sydney Summer Games.
There will also be a panel discussion with Brescia alumnae Joëlle Kabisoso and Christy R. Bressette, moderated by Marlene Janzen Le Ber, chair of Brescia’s school of leadership and social change.
The Hanycz lecture series, honouring former Brescia principal Colleen Hanycz, was set up “to bring outstanding leaders to Brescia to share their knowledge, experience and advice to inform and inspire women leaders of the future.”
To register to view the free event, or for more information, visit brescia.uwo.ca.
Kemp, a poet, playwright, and performance artist who has produced more than 30 books of poetry, prose and drama since the early 1970s, was London’s first poet laureate in 2010, has served as Western University’s writer-in-residence and was the League of Canadian Poets’ spoken word artist in 2015.
She has been on the front lines battling for women’s equality and social justice issues her entire career.
She also has celebrated women in her work, like her two plays about the life of 19th-century adventurer Teresa Harris, youngest of 12 children born to John and Amelia Harris, who built what remains today as London’s oldest and most historic home, Eldon House, which the family donated to the city along with the land that is now Harris Park.
Choose To Challenge is no different, calling on Brescia students to change the world, to face, challenge and conquer their “dragons”:
“Your mission, should you choose to accept
is to choose your own challenge. To challenge
your world, your beliefs, all that you know.
Activate that challenge with confidence.
Call on courage to challenge those old fears
that stop you from embracing what is new.”
“I love it,” said Linda O’Connor, Brescia’s development and campaigns manager, who was instrumental in bringing Kemp to the college’s Women’s Day celebrations.
“I’ve known about Penn’s poetry for a long time and the students, the staff and the faculty have been through so much over this last year. I thought ‘What can we do to show we care?’ ” she said.
“This poem really was intended as a gift to students. For me, the arts are inspirational. They energize me. Penn is really a feminist elder who has always supported women and brought comfort. She inspires and builds people up. She empowers people.”
Kemp said the pandemic has been hard on everyone, but especially for artists, whose income from performances and tours evaporated, forcing most to seek other income or pivot to virtual presentations, often unpaid. A new book she’d hoped to release last year is languishing at the printers.
“Like everyone, I feel the isolation, the suffering and the loss immensely,” said Kemp, who has received little or no income from book tours, which fuel book sales.
“Personally, my life hasn’t changed much, except the complete loss of income was surprising. I’m still here at my desk writing as I would be in normal times.”
Kemp also misses face-to-face contact.
“I suppose I’m inspired meeting face to face with other writers, students and others, being out in the world,” said Kemp, who said the chaos in the U.S. over the presidential election was a major distraction.
“The political situation there was so intense, it stopped my writing for a few months until (President Joe) Biden was safely in office. It took a lot of energy.”
The loss of income due to the pandemic only exacerbated an already difficult financial situation for artists, said Kemp.
“There’s always been a great disparity between what all the artists give in terms of their cultural richness and impact on lives that what they [get] back financially,” said Kemp.
“The way artists have had to pivot to create more opportunity for themselves, and especially for their communities, should be celebrated.”
Kemp quoted the words of American poet Ezra Pound who wrote that “Artists are the antennae of the race.”
“So, there’s a sense of responsibility to our community,” said Kemp. “That’s been evident in the creative ways artists have pivoted to get their new work out.”
jbelanger@postmedia.com
CHOOSE TO CHALLENGE By Penn Kemp
What challenges you, my darlings? What challenge will you accept as you step into your own sweet life?
Do you choose your own challenge? Do you allow challenge to choose you?
Lean in to that challenge. Lean in to your calling, whatever calls your name.
Choosing your challenge is choosing the calling that lets you know who you are and who you may become. What calls
you to be the best you can be? What calls you to act for the sake of all beings?
What challenges you most is what demands you be the most you can possibly become.
What challenge are you choosing to face, to head off, to dare become, double dare?
The world is huge and there be dragons. Challenge your life dragons lurking in dark corners. Invite them into light for inspection.
Stand in your power to challenge all that stands between you and your future self.
Your mission, should you choose to accept is to choose your own challenge. To challenge your world, your beliefs, all that you know.
Activate that challenge with confidence. Call on courage to challenge those old fears that stop you from embracing what is new.
Cultivate the challenge till you feel it fill you. Accept the challenge to live in joy, in thanks.
Challenge accepted? Long may it feed you, your friends and family and your community.
Think of your mentors, your mothers or sisters, all those who have gone before to seed the garden for your growth to flourish as flowers in youth and as fruit in age.
Look to the Order of St. Ursula, patron saint of school girls, and their foundress, Saint Angela Merici and her companions, community-minded, in spirit ensouled.
Think of the lineage of Ursuline Sisters, dedicated to girls’ education, protectors of the land and of Canada’s one women’s university. Committed to community,
they inculcate women’s learning and leadership. They so encourage you to actively contribute your gifts and your yearning toward a new society, the one
that is yours to build, if you choose and choose wisely. With their backing, you know you are free to accept a challenge to be the best of all your possibilities, to
return to the world the flowering of your gifts, so that their legacy of clarity, calm and compassion is shared among those of every colour and creed who so need such
encircling love, strength and wisdom: all the Ursuline Sisters exemplify in being as in their teaching. Ursula Major bright in night sky, points us toward the center of
the North Celestial Pole, Polaris, the light that guides us on, guides us home. May you embody their teachings and follow their lead as you come into your own, agent for change.
Do you remember the days when silicon was an element central to sand, the sense of grit between your toes by the river just beyond the reverberating slap of the old screen against the door jam where wood never quite met wood and was kept together by hook in eye?
It was revolutionary then to discover silicon also sprouted in the segments of scrawny horsetail that surrounded the house as soon as sand met any sort of soil. You’d chew the stalk thoughtfully, its brittle twist into saliva, thinking dinosaur, this plant alive at the same time and huge the way the past is thrown by a trick of light projected onto shadow out of all proportion.
Yourself the size of an ant in a jungle of horsetail.
And then the thud of approaching brontosaurus, its jaws dripping green weeds the size of trees, its wet eye unable to focus on anything
