Poems & Plays for Sale, by the Book-full!

Books are the best gift for a New Year and a new decade!  A shout-out to Canadian small press publishers.  Long may you thrive!

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

Or order from Amazon*. Details below.

From Insomniac Press*, $2O + tax + postage:

Celebrating local writers! https://lfpress.com/entertainment/books/new-books-by-london-and-area-authors-just-in-time-for-christmas

From Quattro Books*, $2O + tax + postage:

Also, prose to celebrate Jack Layton: Love, Hope and Optimism, Ongoing!*

Travel to Ancient Egypt with me for $6 + tax +postage!

Or this fabulous hand-made chapbook from Mother Tongue Books for $50 + tax +postage!

If you love plays and local history, two of my plays about Victorian explorer Teresa Harris are available: https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/the-dream-life-of-teresa-harris and https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/the-triumph-of-teresa-harris.

And this anthology,  available only from me. $20 in this format.  But for $12, without the colour, order from https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/performing-women.

* Find my books on https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=Penn+Kemp&ref=nb_sb_noss.

You can also find them in your Library, I hope. Certainly London Public Library has them all, plus CDs and DVDS.

Blessings for a Joyous Holiday! 

Penn
http://www.pennkemp.weebly.com

Listening to the River

“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 helps explore identity at sixth-annual Wordsfest

Photo: Joe Belanger

Believe…

In the space of a year she has learned to sit,
to stand, to walk, to totter forward in a run.

She has seen one full round of the seasons.
She wraps her family round her little finger.

Now just before dusk we stroll hand in hand
to witness the evening ritual of geese return.

Gliding along the Thames in formation, they
skim overhead, flapping slow time in synch.

She studies their procedure, dropping my hand
to edge forward, neck outstretched, arms aero-

dynamically angled. She flaps and flaps along
the bank, following their flight, ready for that

sudden lift. Again, again, till the last goose has
flown. Dragging her heels home, disconcerted,

she braces her body against the rising breeze,
bewildered that she too can’t take off to sky

but game to try again tomorrow, convinced
the birds’ secret will soon belong to her.

 

A Year of Happily Reading

BOOKS READ

An odd collection but then 2019 was an odd year!

Thanks to London Public Library for most of these books! And to indie bookshops and small press publishers. Long may you thrive!

Jon Acuff, Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done

Elizabeth Alexander, How Lovely the Ruins

Andre Alexis, Days by Moonlight

Nina Allan, The Rift

Kate Atkinson, Transcription
Kate Atkinson, Big Sky

Atticus. The dark between stars

Margaret Atwood, Power politics: poems /introduction by Jan Zwicky
Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

Mona Awad, Bunny

Chris Bailey, Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction

James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

Jo Baker, The Body Lies

John Banville, The sea

Linwood Barclay, A Noise Downstairs

Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls

Julian Barnes, The Only Story

Mike Barnes, Braille rainbow: poems

T.A. Barron, Atlantis Rising
T.A. Barron, Merlin’s Dragon
T.A. Barron, Merlin’s dragon. Book 2, Doomraga’s revenge

Belinda Bauer, Snap

Ann Beattie, A Wonderful Stroke of Luck

Yves Beauchemin, translated by Wayne Grady. The Accidental Education of Jerome Lupien

Frank Beddor, The Looking Glass Wars

Billy-Ray Belcourt, This Wound is a World

Gwen Benaway, Holy wild

Chloe Benjamin, The Immortalists

Diana Beresford-Kroeger, To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest

Sharon Berg, Naming the Shadows: stories

Gabrielle Bernstein, May Cause Miracles

bill bissett, Breth: th treez uv lunaria: selektid rare n nu pomes n drawings, 1957-2019

Robert Bly, More Than True: The Wisdom of Fairy Tales

Alan Bradley, The golden tresses of the dead

Gregg Braden, The turning point / creating resilience in a time of extremes

Dionne Brand, The Blue Clerk
Dionne Brand, Theory

Di Brandt, Glitter & fall: Laozi’s, Dao De Jing transinhalations

Brené Brown, Dare to lead: brave work, tough conversations, whole hearts

Julie Bruck, How to avoid huge ships

Carol Bruneau, A circle on the surface

Wanda Easter Burch; with a foreword by Robert Moss, She who dreams: a journey into healing through dreamwork

Anna Burns, Milkman

Augusten Burroughs, Toil & Trouble

Steve Burrows, A Dance of Cranes

Simon Buxton, The Shamanic way of the bee: ancient wisdom and healing practices of the bee masters

Maria Campbell, Halfbreed

Anne Carson, Bakkhai / Euripides

Michael Chabon, Book Ends

Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce femmes and notorious liars: a dangerous trans girl’s confabulous memoir

Tracy Chevalier, A single thread

Susan Choi, Trust Exercise

Ann Cleeves, Cold earth

Cohen, Harry’s trees

Henri Cole, Orphic Paris

Billy Collins, The Rain in Portugal

Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory

Craig Davidson, The Saturday Night Ghost Club

Lauren B. Davis, The Grimoire of Kensington Market

Lisa de Nikolits, The occult persuasion and the anarchist’s solution / a novel

Edmund De Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

Patrick DeWitt, French Exit

Claudia Dey, Heart-Breaker

Kate DiCamillo, The Tales of Despereaux

Cherie Dimaline, Red rooms
Cherie Dimaline, Empire of Wild

Emma Donoghue, The Lotterys More or Less
Emma Donoghue, Akin

David Dowker, Machine Language

Carol Ann Duffy, Rapture

Helen Dunmore, Birdcage walk

Alicia Elliott, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground

Marina Endicott, The Difference

Jenny Erpenbeck; translated by Susan Bernofsky, The end of days

Terry Fallis, Albatross

Amanda Flower, Prose and cons: Magical Bookshop Mystery Series, Book 2

Jonathan Safran Foer, We Are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast

Jonathan Franzen, The end of the end of the earth: essays

Tana French, The Witch Elm

Neil Gaiman, The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection
Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
Neil Gaiman, The problem of Susan and other stories. P. Craig Russell, adaptation and art (The Problem of Susan, Locks) ; Scott Hampton, art (October in the Chair); Paul Chadwick, art (The Day the Saucers Came)
Neil Gaiman, Art Matters: Because Your Imagination Can Change the World
Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good omens: [the nice and accurate prophecies of Agnes Nutter, witch]

Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

Susan Gillis, Yellow crane

Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers

Imogen Hermes Gowar, The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock

Philippa Gregory, Tidelands

Lauren Groff, Florida

Camilla Grudova, The Doll’s Alphabet

Steven R. Gundry, The plant paradox cookbook: 100 delicious recipes to help you lose weight, heal your gut, and live lectin-free
Steven R. Gundry, The Longevity Paradox: How to Die Young at a Ripe Old Age

Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Mark Haddon, The Porpoise

Tessa Hadley, The past

Rick Hanson, Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness

Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens

Dan Harris and Jeff Warren, Meditation for fidgety skeptics: a 10% happier how-to book

Paul Hawken, ed. Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming

Brian Henderson, Sharawadjii

Elin Hilderbrand, Summer of ’69

Susan Howe, Debths

Helen Humphreys, Machines Without Horses

Siri Hustvedt, Memories of the future: a novel

Mark Hyman, Food: what the heck should I eat?
Mark Hyman, The Blood Sugar Solution
Mark Hyman, MD. Eat fat, get thin: why the fat we eat is the key to sustained weight loss and vibrant health

Inbali Iserles, The mage

Denis Johnson, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden

Sadie Jones, The Snakes

Eve Joseph, Quarrels: prose poems

Julie Kagawa, Shadow of the Fox

Mary Karr, Tropic of squalor: poems

Byron Katie, written with Stephen Mitchell: Loving what is: four questions that can change your life

Guy Gavriel Kay, A Brightness Long Ago

Thomas King, A matter of malice: a DreadfulWater mystery

Barbara Kingsolver, Unsheltered

John La Greca, Homeless Memorial: Poems from the Streets of Vernon

Ben Ladouceur, Otter

Mark Laliberte, Brick Brick Brick

Olivia Laing, Crudo

Michiko Kakutani, The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump

Laila Lalami, The other Americans

Lori Lansens, This Little Light

Juliet Lapidos, Talent: a novel

John Le Carré, Agent Running in the Field

Ursula Le Guin, Words Are My Matter: Writings About Life and Books
Ursula Le Guin, No time to spare: thinking about what matters

John Lent, Wood Lake
John Lent, Frieze

Donna Leon, Unto Us a Son is Given

Robert Lepage and Marie Michaud; Fred Jourdain, illustrator ; translation from Mandarin, Min Sun. The blue dragon

Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective

Elise Levine, This wicked tongue: stories

Deborah Levy, Things I Don’t Want to Know: A Working Autobiography: a response to George Orwell’s 1946 essay ‘Why I write’

Thea Lim, An Ocean of Minutes

Sven Lindqvist, Terra nullius: a journey through no one’s land; translated by Sarah Death

Sam Lipsyte, Hark: a novel

Penelope Lively, Life in the Garden
Penelope Lively, The Road to Lichfield

D.A. Lockhart, Big medicine comes to Erie

Barry Lopez, Horizon

Amanda Lovelace, The princess saves herself in this one

Canisia Lubrin, Voodoo hypothesis: poems

Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive

David Lynch and Kristine McKenna, Room to dream

Sandra Lynn Lynxleg, Glass Beads, Gaspereau Press

Tanis MacDonald, Out of Line: Daring to be an Artist Outside the Big City

Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris, The lost words: a spell book
Robert Macfarlane, Underland

Lee Maracle, My conversations with Canadians
Lee Maracle, Talking to the diaspora

Daphne Marlatt, Intertidal: The Collected Earlier Poems, 1968-2008

Mark Matousek, Mother of the unseen world: the mystery of Mother Meera  

Susan McCaslin & J. S. Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine

Elizabeth McCracken, Bowlaway

Ami McKay, Half Spent is the Night
Ami McKay, Daughter of Family G: A Memoir of Cancer Genes, Love and Fate

Bill McKibben, Falter. Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?

kevin mcpherson eckhoff, Circadia

Andrew McMillan Playtime

Jay MillAr, Timely irreverence

Madeline Miller, Circe

Ken Mogi, Awakening your ikigai

1. M. Montgomery, Rilla of Ingleside: Anne of Green Gables Series, Book 8

Sinéad Morrissey, On Balance

Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard

Robert Moss, The secret history of dreaming

Sarah Moss, Ghost Wall

Herta Muller, the fox was ever the hunter

Renée Nault, The handmaid’s tale / [based on the novel by] Margaret Atwood; art & adaptation

Sandra Newman, The Heavens

Cecily Nicholson, Wayside sang: poems

bpNichol, Nights on prose mountain; edited by Derek Beaulieu

Edna O’Brien, Girl

Michelle Obama, Becoming

Chigozie Obioma, An orchestra of minorities

Mary Oliver, At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver, Upstream: selected essays

Tommy Orange, There There

Susan Orlean, The Library Book

Judith Orloff, The empath’s survival guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People
Judith Orloff, The Power of Surrender

Elaine Pagels, Why Religion?: A Personal Story

Nicholas Papaxanthos, Wearing Your Pants

Ann Patchett, The Dutch House
Ann Patchett, Run

Louise Penny, A Better Man

Sarah Perry, Melmoth

Julia Phillips, Disappearing earth

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Tonguebreaker: poems and performance texts

Signe Pike, The Lost Queen

Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: what the new science of psychedelics teaches us about consciousness, dying, addiction, depression, and transcendence

Maria Popova, Figuring

Max Porter, Lanny
Max Porter, Grief is the Thing with Feathers

Steven Price, Lampedusa

Philip Pullman, Daemon voices: on stories and storytelling
Philip Pullman, The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth

David Quammen, The Tangled Tree

Joanne Ramos, The Farm

Ian Rankin, In a house of lies

Michael Redhill, Twitch force: poems

Clea Roberts, Auguries: poems

Robin Robertson, The Wrecking Light

Eden Robinson, Trickster Drift

Judith Rodger, Greg Curnoe: life & work

Sally Rooney, Normal People

Laisha Rosnau, Our Familiar Hunger
Laisha Rosnau, The sudden weight of snow

Rena Rossner, The sisters of the winter wood: Forests and forestry

don Miguel Ruiz and Barbara Emrys, The three questions: how to discover and master the power within you

Salman Rushdie, Quichotte

Karen Russell, Orange World and Other Stories

Oliver Sacks, The River of Consciousness
Oliver Sacks, Everything in its Place: First Loves and Last Tales

Robert Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Anakana Schofield, Bina

Rebecca Scritchfield, Body kindness

W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz; translated by Anthea Bell

Lisa See, The island of sea women: a novel

Diane Setterfield, Once Upon a River
Diane Setterfield, The thirteenth tale

Hana Shafi, It begins with the body: poems & illustrations

Leanne Shapton, Guestbook: Ghost Stories

Robin Sharma, The 5 AM club: own your morning, elevate your life

Dean Sherzai, The alzheimer’s solution: A Breakthrough Program to Prevent and Reverse the Symptoms of Cognitive Decline at Every Age

Vivek Shraya, I’m Afraid of Men

Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, The Yes Brain
Daniel Siegel, The Science and Practice of Presence—A Complete Guide to the Groundbreaking Wheel of Awareness Meditation Practice

Leila Slimani, The Perfect Nanny

Ali Smith, Winter
Ali Smith, Spring

Zadie Smith, Grand Union

Adam Sol, Complicity

Karen Solie, Pigeon: poems
Karen Solie, The Caiplie Caves

Rebecca Solnit, Whose story is this?: old conflicts, new chapters
Rebecca Solnit, Cinderella Liberator

Jen Sookfong Lee, The Animals of Chinese New Year

Heidi Sopinka, The Dictionary of Animal Languages

Lauren St John, Dolphin Song

Elizabeth Strout, Olive, Again: A Novel
Elizabeth Strout, The Burgess Boys

Tanya Tagaq, Split Tooth

Tanya Talaga, All Our Relations: Finding the Path Forward

Daniel Tammet, Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing

Drew Hayden Taylor, Chasing painted horses / a novel

William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity fair

Harold Rhenisch, The Spoken World

Joan Thomas, Five Wives

Miriam Toews, Women Talking

Dania Tomlinson, Our Animal Hearts

Rose Tremain, Trespass

Mark Truscott, Branches

Ayelet Tsabari, The Art of Leaving

Anne Tyler, Clock Dance

Arielle Twist, Disintegrate/dissociate: poems

Priscila Uppal, On second thought

Luis Alberto Urrea, The House of Broken Angels

Katherena Vermette, river woman

Alberto Villoldo, Grow a new body: how spirit and power plant nutrients can transform your health

Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous

Richard Wagamese, Embers: one Ojibway’s meditations

Martin Walker, A taste for vengeance
Martin Walker, The body in the castle well

Clemantine Wamariya, The Girl Who Smiled Beads

Phoebe Wang, Admission requirements

Izabella Wentz, Hashimoto’s food pharmacology: nutrition protocols and healing recipes to take charge of your thyroid health

Walt Whitman, Live oak, with moss; art by Brian Selznick . Commentary by Karen Karbiener, Whitman scholar

Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein

Peter Wohlleben, The Weather Detective: Rediscovering Nature’s Secret Signs
Peter Wohlleben, The Secret Wisdom of Nature: Trees, Animals, and the Extraordinary Balance of All Living Things

Tom Wolfe, The Kingdom of Speech

Anthology

Luminous Ink: Writers on Writing in Canada

Howard White & Emma Skagen, editors; Beyond forgetting: celebrating 100 years of Al Purdy with a forward by Steven Heighton

Ian Williams, editor; The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2018

Hua Laura Wu, Xueqing Xu, Corinne Bieman Davies, editors; Toward the North: stories by Chinese Canadian writers

Poems and texts; an anthology of French poems, translations, & interviews with Ponge, Follain, Guillevic, Frenaud, Bonnefoy, DuBouchet, Roche & Pleynet  

Jeremy Noel-Tod, The Penguin book of the prose poem: from Baudelaire to Anne Carson / edited and introduced by Jeremy Noel-Tod

An enduring wilderness: Toronto’s natural parklands / photographs by Robert Burley; with writing by Anne Michaels, Michael Mitchell, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Alissa York, George Elliott Clarke, Wayne Reeves

DVDS SEEN

Anne of Green Gables: fire & dew; directed by John Kent Harrison

Doctor Who: the two doctors

Paul Goodman Changed My Life: The Life and Work of an Influential Philosopher

Black panther / directed by Ryan Coogler

The Square

Top of the lake directed by Jane Campion
Top of the lake. China girl directed by Jane Campion

Killing of the Sacred Deer. “The Killing of a Sacred Deer takes its name, Iphigenia in Aulis. Dating back to 405 BCE, Agamemnon and his men are stranded on an island because the goddess of the hunt, Artemis, has suspended the winds they require to set sail for Troy. If the war effort is to continue—and it must—he has to sacrifice his own daughter, Iphigenia, because he was previously responsible for the death of a sacred deer belonging to the goddess.”

Madame Bovary

Miss Julie

Regarding Susan Sontag: Portrait of a Feminist Icon

Paris was a Woman

To the Ends of the Earth

Counterpart

Colette

Hereditary directed by Ari Aster

The Handmaid’s Tale: Season 2

The Good Karma Hospital. Series 1

Faces places; written and directed by Agnès Varda and J.R. Watched a glorious doc, Faces Places by Agnes Varda and J.R.: she’s 80 something.  So moving; you’d love it: colour galore!

Claire’s Camera

Primaire

The Sisters Brothers

Agatha Raisin. Series one

Crooked house

Notes on a scandal; directed by Richard Eyre

The Little Stranger. Based on Sarah Waters

On Chesil Beach

The spy who dumped me directed by Susanna Fogel

The children act; directed by Richard Eyre. Based on the novel by Ian McEwan

Isle of dogs / directed by Wes Anderson

Risk

The White Queen

Blackkklansman directed by Spike Lee

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Dir: Marielle Heller. With a screenplay by film-maker Nicole Holofcener. Melissa McCarthy Sharp objects

The crown. The complete second season

Bohemian Rhapsody

The Americans. The complete fifth season

At Eternity’s Gate by Julian Schnabel

A Star is Born

The White Queen

Mum. Season one

First reformed directed by Paul Schrader: two quotes from Merton!!  Activism and faith… good commentary on DVD.

The Bookshop

Greta

If Beale Street could talk. Barry Jenkins from James Baldwin

Harold and Maude

At Eternity’s Gate. Willem da Foe as Vincent van Gogh

Fahrenheit 11/9 directed by Michael Moore

Crazy Rich Asians

On the basis of sex. Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The Good Karma Hospital. Series 2

Doctor Who with Jodie Whittaker –in Broadchurch, new showrunner Chris Chibnall

The Wife

Private Life

Symbiotic Earth: How Lynn Margulis Rocked the Boat and Started A Scientific Revolution. I was listening to David Quammen, The Tangled Tree: A net more than a tree. “In the mid-1970s, scientists began using DNA sequences to reexamine the history of all life. Perhaps the most startling discovery to come out of this new field—the study of life’s diversity and relatedness at the molecular level—is horizontal gene transfer (HGT), or the movement of genes across species lines. It turns out that HGT has been widespread and important. For instance, we now know that roughly eight percent of the human genome arrived not through traditional inheritance from directly ancestral forms, but sideways by viral infection—a type of HGT. In The Tangled Tree David Quammen, “chronicles these discoveries through the lives of the researchers who made them—such as Carl Woese, the most important little-known biologist of the twentieth century; Lynn Margulis, the notorious maverick whose wild ideas about “mosaic” creatures proved to be true; and Tsutomu Wantanabe, who discovered that the scourge of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is a direct result of horizontal gene transfer, bringing the deep study of genome histories to bear on a global crisis in public health.”

July 19, 2019: Entropy indeed! But the construction continues from 7am till 6pm, making the entire house and my nervous system vibrate!  Not today, there were several wild thunderstorms and more to come, even hail!  And a tornado watch. So I’ve been watching videos…The Wife (astounding; have you seen it?  Glenn Close is mesmerizing. Symbiotic Earth: Lynn Margolis Rocked the Boat & Started A Scientific Revolution. Brilliant woman!  A Private War, with Rosamund Pike totally inhabiting war correspondent Marie Colvin. About to see My Brilliant Friend. All from our Library, so I’m out of date but what a treat: I don’t usually watch: we don’t have TV, just the monitor:).

A private war. Marie Colvin.

My Brilliant Friend. July 21, 2019:  During the storms, I’ve been watching My Brilliant Friend… amazing corollary depicting so vividly Ferrante’s story! I just saw MY BRILLIANT FRIEND, based on Ferrante. Brilliant indeed!

Shetland. Season four

Vera 8

RBG

Mary Queen of Scots. Dir: Josie Rourke, played by Saoirse Ronan. Margot Robbie plays her nemesis, Queen Elizabeth I, and David Tennant is John Knox

Victoria, Season 3

Poetry in America. Season 1; director, Elisa New

In the dark, directed by Gilles Banner, Ulrik Imitiaz Rolfsen

The Durrells in Corfu. The complete third season. Watched The Durrels in Corfu series with the kids: sweet.

Killing Eve; Based on the novellas by Luke Jennings. I recovered by watching Killing Eve and fast forwarding through the ‘kills’.  Brilliant and weird.  Sandra Oh is a marvel. Have you watching Killing Eve? Mesmerizingly weird! Oh Sandra Oh!

The child in time. Watching Cumberbatch in “A Child in Time” and about to see, next cloudy day, “Patrick Melrose”.

Patrick Melrose. David Nicholls turned Edward St Aubyn’s books into a heart-wrenching account of abuse and addiction, carried by a majestic Benedict Cumberbatch. Benedict as Patrick… I cdn’t get through the novels, too disturbing. I don’t really understand the gay sensibility of those times, like “Suddenly, Last Summer”.

Us

Gloria Bell

The seagull

Infinity: the ultimate trip / produced by Alberto Villoldo
A Handful of Dust
Apollo 11: Mission to the Moon

Departure/ director, Andrew Steggall

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Green Book

Fantastic beasts: the crimes of Grindelwald / directed by David Yates

24 frames / a film by Abbas Kiarostami

My Week With Marilyn

Small Island. Based on the novel by Andrea Levy

Late Night with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling

Pina / directed by Wim Wenders

High Life, Claire Denis

Beloved

The Little Drummer Girl

Reading at Novel Idea, Kingston. Photo by Andrew Simms.

 

 

 

This Review Made My Day:)

Review: River Revery | By Penn Kemp

Insomniac Press | 2019 | $19.95

Reviewed by Bill Arnott

London Ontario’s my home. In part. Lived there two years. Important years. Growth years. It’s why I feel kinship, connection with the community and the meandering multi-named river that sews it together. I feel the same for the Laureate Emerita that truly calls this place her home, living in the house she grew up in, a songbird’s flight from the water, the faintest tidal tug hinting at Great Lakes and storm-capped Atlantic.

Penn Kemp’s River Revery came to me just before Christmas. It felt like a present; the cover – Mary McDonald photo, Mike O’Connor design – a copse of evergreens reaching, waving, to an avian line, all in reverential shades of aquamarine. Opening pages, I unwrap Penn’s poetic world, her gift, to us. From River Revery, the title poem:

“Water abounds here, with this river … My rant runs along the river in / long twilight along the shore, a / migratory route for warblers / alighting in cottonwood, a trill.”

Within this beauty, insights, each message clear. From True Cost: Walmart versus Woodland:

“How do you evaluate a loss of habitat / tamped down by asphalt, crushed by // power complexes where brand names / replace the reality of life that feeds us? … Ask what lasts. Glacial meltwater carved / a spillway through the Ingersoll moraine, / flood plain to terraced loam to upland clay, / Carolinian and northern Great Lake forest.”

Yet in pure Penn Kemp style, with poignancy comes playfulness. From All for Art:

“The photographer takes me down to the river, / my favourite spot. I dress up, thinking to just / stand by the bank and recite a poem while he // shoots. But no, he wants me by the water so / we scramble down the steep bank, brushing / back willow branches. He holds them back, // grinning: ‘I won’t let them snap till you’re / past.’ ‘Do you happen to have sisters?’ I / ask, recognizing the temptation he resists.”

Like Thames tributaries, this volume’s unexpected bends surface through mixed media – verse interspersed with photography and matrix barcodes leading us to live readings, music, song and film – Penn’s poetry spoken, sung and captured in video vignettes. A showcase of performances and collaboration unfold as we leap from the printed page to stage, YouTube and SoundCloud, Kemp continuing to push creative boundaries and blur artistic lines, her work a poetic map where latitude and longitude no longer apply.

Despite a nasty tumble and wrenched ankle during an accompanying photo shoot, our author perseveres. Again, from All for Art:

“For such an immersive experience, standing / on the edge won’t do. I offer to wade in, / rolling up my pants like Huckleberry Finn, / giving my all for Art as / always.”

Indeed. For such an immersive experience standing on the edge simply won’t do. Once more this poet gives her all. Few do it as well. No one does it better. While dedicating this book to her grandchildren, she could just as well dedicate River Revery to the planet, to which we owe our all. And need. Like Penn Kemp, as always.

***

Poet, performer, and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972), a “poetic El Niño,” and a “one-woman literary industry.” She was London’s inaugural Piet Laureate (2010-2013) and has been granted numerous municipal, provincial, and national awards. Chosen as the League of Canadian Poets’ Spoken Word Artist (2015), Kemp has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty books of poetry, prose, and drama, seven plays and ten CDs produced.

Author, poet, songwriter Bill Arnott is the bestselling author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga and Dromomania. His poetry, articles and reviews are published in Canada, US, UK, Europe and Asia. Bill’s a national songwriting finalist, poetry award recipient and finalist for Whistler Independent Book Awards with Gone Viking: A Travel Saga. When not trekking the globe with a weatherproof journal and outdated camera phone, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, making friends and misbehaving. @billarnott_aps

Grazing the Face of Climate Change: a poem

#barbaricculturalpractice @QuattroBook

The cedar the bohemian

wax wings twitter among

bare boughs on their way

warmward.

Envy emulates flight,

lights desire, douses

doubt in fiercer certainty.

Icarus stretches his fine

new wings, disarmed by

possibilities plus.

“Beware the wax, my son.

It cannot last in the face of

strong Sun shine.”

No fear. Bright day beckons.

“I’m on my way and who will

gainsay the path to glory, glory!”

Damn the consequence, o’erweening teen.

Between between the elements.

High performance art starts here.

Raising mighty arms he flaps. He flies.

Close, warming his face. Oh, the glow!

Pride bursts, sun bursts, sun grazing.

Rising solar flare— sudden glare incipient—

may might may not

Bright implausible wings dim before

a brighter sun, too close.

Closer. Losing altitude, attitude

Lost.

Farther from father info free fall.

(Hubris, they will say in that all-knowing future.)

The fall, falling. Spring springing.

A flutter of feathers catching the light light on the surface.

Follow their fine drift on the wind, winding down

through sub-lunar splendour onto sea sparkle.

Living sphere, Facing fear too late on a sea of metrics.

Facing ob- livion. (Immortal eyes can not cut it).

Dead last. Death lasts forever. Ever more.

Reflect, refract, reflect again and loss a gain.

Free to fail only once and then no longer

No longer boy but myth.

Penn Kemp

Photo: Mary McDonald

Thirty Years On, And…

 

Thirty years since the Montreal Massacre, and we still desperately need action on Violence Against Women.  

What can we do? I believe art can inspire us to action.  And so this poem, for the 14 and for all those missing and murdered girls and women:

The Invocation

Come say hello, women. While the veils are still
thin, we welcome your presence, no longer missed
but present, with all the disappeared you stand for.

As if you were in the prime of life now. As if
your daughters bloomed full-grown around you.
As if your mothers were crying delighted tears.

And if you were here to see what has changed
and what has not, would you hide your eyes in
shame for what has been done, what has not?

Come into the light and tell us how you are. As
if you have life beyond what we recall or remember
before this dark December claims its own again.

Poem for Peace in Many Voices (book and CD) was published by Pendas Productions. The cover detail is from beloved London artist Bernice Vincent’s mural of the murdered women. The blue and red painting is by my father, London painter Jim Kemp.

To counteract the silence that all too often surrounds violence, I’ve coined the neologism Siolence. See https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/2015/11/25/stop-the-siolence/?fbclid=IwAR231-tU_mp9S8GoVlIAMx13PoUKPZXa6JGOoAAJ_82bFl0cwk5sr8z-Mo8.

Meanwhile, ongoing: this collaboration for the namaz collective, mujer arte de oaxaca.
Anne Anglin and I are so happy to participate in this project! Art as Activism!  Anne writes about this “patch work blanket being assembled by a group of women in Mexico. Their aim is to sew this blanket comprised of large squares designed by women from anywhere in the world and to take it to Trump’s wall and throw it over the wall to their Sisters on the other side. These sisters will carry it off to places that will exhibit it.”

Patchwork: Healing Blanket/La Manta de Curación Group.
Anne Anglin, art. My poem, from “In Light”.

Blessings,

Penn

Poems for Sale: a wish list for you

Books are the best gift for upcoming holidays… a respite from the rush.

Here are my recent offerings to share with poetry- and play-loving pals.

If you order from me, I’ll sign them as you wish!
Penn Kemp
525 Canterbury Road
London Ontario N6G 2N5
pennkemp@gmail.com

Or order from Amazon*. Details below.

From Insomniac Press*, $2O + tax + postage:

From Quattro Books*, $2O + tax + postage:

Also, prose to celebrate Jack Layton: Love, Hope and Optimism, Ongoing!*

Travel to Ancient Egypt with me for $6 + tax +postage!

Or this fabulous hand-made chapbook from Mother Tongue Books for $50 + tax +postage!

If you love plays and local history, two of my plays about Victorian explorer Teresa Harris are available: https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/the-dream-life-of-teresa-harris and https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/the-triumph-of-teresa-harris.

And this anthology,  available only from me. $20 in this format.  But for $12, without the colour, order from https://www.canadianplayoutlet.com/products/performing-women.

* Find my books on https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=Penn+Kemp&ref=nb_sb_noss.

Blessings for a Joyous Holiday!
Penn