Celebrating Creative Age Festival!

Writing Your Way!

Upcoming Events for National Poetry Month 2016 and ON

from National Youth Arts Week to Creative Age Festival

Thursday, April 28, 6:30-8:30 pm. WRITING YOUR WAY!. Writing workshop and reading.  Beacock Library, 1280 Huron St, London, Ontario N5Y 4M2, (519) 451-8140.  2016 Creative Age Festival. National Poetry Month. Penn’s reading/workshop will be “The Road, The Path, The Way Not Taken: Writing What If”. “You inspired so many writers last year that we would love to have you back again for the 2016 Creative Age Festival. Your Poetry is bound to inspire as always.” Contact: Pauline Duncan-Thrasher, Community-Library Liaison, pauline@beamazinglyyou.com. Free but you need to register:
https://encore.londonpubliclibrary.ca/iii/encore/record/C__Rg1005885__Screative%20age__P0,3__Orightresult__X6?lang=eng&suite=beta

Saturday, April 30. Authors for Indies Day, Oxford Book Shop, 262 Piccadilly Street, London, N6A 1S4. Contact: Hilary bookorderprocessing@oxfordbookshop.com. Tel: 519-438-8336.  www.oxfordbookshop.com, http://www.authorsforindies.com/.

Tuesday, May 3. Glendale High School, 37 Glendale Drive. Tillsonburg, ON N4G 1J6. TEL: 519-842-4207.  Contact: John Marriott <j.marriott@tvdsb.on.ca>. Sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets. Poets in the Schools National Youth Arts Week.

Thursday, May 5, 6:30-8:30 pm. WRITING YOUR WAY!. Writing workshop and reading.   Beacock Library, 1280 Huron St, London, Ontario N5Y 4M2, (519) 451-8140.  2016 Creative Age Festival. http://poets.ca/npm/. Penn’s reading/workshop will be “The Road, The Path, The Way Not Taken: Writing What If”. Contact: Pauline Duncan-Thrasher, Community-Library Liaison, pauline@beamazinglyyou.com. Free but you need to register:

Friday, May 6. Lester B. Pearson School for the Arts, 795 Trafalgar St, London, ON N5Z 1E6, (519) 452-8300. Sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets, National Youth Arts Week. Contact: Jennifer Chesnut, <feministsoulfire@gmail.com>.

Tuesday, May 24, 7 – 8:30 pm. Opening The Creative Aging Festival Showcase concert. Wolf Hall, 251 Dundas St. London ON. Contact: June Cole, diverse.arts@gmail.com. https://www.facebook.com/CreativeAgeLondon/photos/a.181607875346967.1073741828.181474082027013/545731032267981/?type=3&theater

Friday, June 17, 7:45-9 am. The anthology, Women & Multimedia, edited by Penn Kemp, will be launched at the breakfast business meeting of the Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets. Contributors Di Brandt, Terry Carter, Penn Kemp, Moe Clark, Jude Neale, and Cathy Petch will present our work then. The 2016 Canadian Writers’ Summit, Harbourfront Centre, Toronto ON, 235 Queens Quay W, Toronto, ON M5J 2G8. http://poets.ca/feministcaucus/, http://www.canadianwriterssummit.com/english#/program/

Saturday, June 18, 4-5:30pm, 2016. Panel, “Women & Performance: Playwrights and Performance Poets”, with panelists from both Playwrights Guild Women’s Caucus and League Feminist Caucus members. Penn is panel coordinator and editor of the anthology to be launched at the same time. Sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada and the League of Canadian Poets. The 2016 Canadian Writers’ Summit, Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay W, Toronto, ON M5J 2G8, http://poets.ca/feministcaucus/, canadianwriterssummit.com.

Celebrating Ancient Egypt: HELWA!

I’ll be reading from this chapbook and HELWA! (Beautiful) on Saturday, April 16, 2-4 p.m. The Garafraxa Café, 131 Garafraxa Street South (Highway 6), Durham ON N0G 1R0. National Poetry Month reading:
“The Road” with Daniel Kolos and Liz Zetlin. See http://poets.ca/npm/.

You can hear HELWA! on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zU21sg6_As with musician Bill Gilliam.

Contact: Michelle and Kevin Bosse, 519-369-2175, garafraxacafe@gmail.com. See http://poets.ca/npm/.

SUITE ANCIENT EGYPT was hand-made by Mona Fertig for http://www.mothertonguepublishing.com/.
Cover by Peter Haase.

On the Road for National Poetry Month!

Poem for Vimy Ridge

April 9th is Vimy Ridge Day, an official National Day of Remembrance of the Battle.
Vimy is also Canada’s symbol of commemoration for the First World War: 1914-1918.

“Poets and Poet Laureates from British Columbia to the Maritimes wrote heart‐felt poems expressing the thoughts and feelings of Canadians toward the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers. For many, their poem was a personal tribute to a father, grandfather, uncle… or to a more recent fallen soldier.Their poems communicate the belief that the soldiers’ spirits will live on through the planting of the Vimy Oaks and that each tree will be a silent requiem for the past and a symbol of Canadians’ commitment to still stand on guard in the future.”

The poem below is dedicated to Sir Arthur Currie, my great-uncle.
After storming Vimy Ridge, he was appointed head of the Canadian Corps in June, 1917.

The Stand of Oak

Battle’s devastation cut down men and oaks,
leaving Vimy Ridge bare from ’16 till now.
But one veteran sent a few acorns to Canada

and raised a grove memento. Now these trees
will stand as metaphor for endurance, mingled
roots living on in lieu of the soldiers who fell.

Now our Canadian branches will be returning
home to be grafted on European oak saplings.
They’ll respond to wind in the crackling Fall.

These oaks will listen through trembling roots
to news that travels in the near neighbourwood:
subtle climate shiftings from drought to deluge.

The lobed leaves that open to embrace sun, to
soak in rain: they will know a longer time we
can only imagine, knowing history’s record.

This copse you plant now may not remember
a war a century past though it could realize its
own long span to last the whole millennium.

The oaks you plant on Vimy Ridge will not be
thinking of men today or ever: their work is in
attending to the rise from heartwood out to leaf.

These oaks may not thank you personally but
their presence is gratitude enough, is witness.
Thriving, they will return life to Vimy Ridge.

In the slow dream of trees may the men awake
who died here. May they be recalled by name
in their prime, rising as hope from desolation.

By Penn Kemp, London ON

 

http://www.vimyfoundation.ca/vimy-oaks-poetry/
http://www.vimyfoundation.ca/vimy-100/vimy-oaks-poetry/the-stand-of-oak/

Sir Arthur Currie

 http://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/objects-and-photos/photographs/photographs-of-prominent-people/sir-arthur-currie/?back=471