Poem for Equinox, March 20

At the Moment of Equinox

I enter the garden, the ground
still held by winter, spring
almost released. I stand
at the centre into which all
flow, from which all emerge.

Wind in the upper birch stills.
The garden’s breath is so long
it is immeasurable. But I wait,
offering awareness as witness.

Pivoting, I pray. North, grant us
your clarity and strength. West,
your surrender and acceptance.
South, your joy and creativity.

East, your initiation, inspiration.
Sky, your broad view. Earth,
your ground, your holy round.

The moment is held in a bowl
beyond comprehension, beyond
belief. May we carry balance

lightly on each step of the way
till it recurs six months off. May
we find a way to become whole.

May the earth find her stability.
May the equanimity of equinox
be yours, be ours, be hers all ways
belief in beyond.

– Penn Kemp

Gathering Voices, April 11

Your invitation to “Gathering Voices”​, an evening of poetry at London Central Library.​​

Come celebrate Nature and National Poetry Month with us!
Thursday, April 11, 2019. 7-8:30 pm.
Stevenson & Hunt Room, Central Library, 251 Dundas Street, London N6A 6H9.

Katerina Fretwell, Susan McCaslin (the RhiZoom B(l)oomers) and Susan McMaster will be reading with me for National Poetry Month on the theme of Nature: poets.ca/npm.
Sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets.

I will be launching FOX HAUNTS! And we will begin the evening with the first showing of Mary McDonald marvellous short film interpretation of my poem, “Wishing Well”. See ​https:/riverrevery.ca.

Free admission.  Books and CDs by the authors will be available for sale.

Celebrating International Poetry Day, ongoing!

Sunshine and Spring!,

Penn Kemp

Backgrounder for Fox Haunts

Katerina Fretwell’s ninth poetry and art collection, We Are Malala (Inanna)will be out Spring 2019. Her eighth, Dancing on a Pin, was long-listed for The League of Canadian Poets’ Lowther Prize, was performed in International Authors Association’s Battle of the Bard. Pendas Productions has published two of Katerina’s poetry books, with accompanying CD. Susan McMaster’s new book Haunt investigates “the world entire, with all its mystery, heartbreak, and magic” (Carolyn Smart) in warm, conversational poetry that speaks to a wide range of readers with “rhythm and verve” (Jan Conn). Her publications include some 30 books, magazines, anthologies, and recordings. She’s a past president of the League of Canadian Poets. Susan McCaslin is a BC poet who has published fifteen volumes of poetry, including her most recent, Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna, 2017). Susan resides in Fort Langley, where she initiated the Han Shan Poetry Project as part of a successful campaign to protect an endangered rainforest along the Fraser River. Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been lauded as a “one-woman literary industry” since her first Coach House publication (1972). She edited Canada’s first anthology of women’s writing, IS 14 (1973) as well as two recent anthologies, Women and Multimedia and Performing Women. New books of poetry are Local Heroes (Insomniac Press), and Fox Haunts (Aeolus House, Fall 2018).