… I found it hard to compute that people were behind me, strolling with their ice creams and specialty coffees. That we are all just living here, as this is happening there.
This unsettling feeling is a recurring theme in a new Canadian poetry anthology. Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine was put together in less than three months by London, Ont.-based poet Penn Kemp and Richard-Yves Sitoski, who is poet laureate for Owen Sound, Ont.
In February on her blog, Kemp asked poets to respond to W.H. Auden’s famous quote (from his elegy for W.B. Yeats) that “poetry makes nothing happen.” Then she put out a call on social media. Dozens of poems came in, many of which appear in the anthology.
Some deal with that feeling of impotence, going on with life in Canada as war raged, such as Tanis MacDonald’s We lived Canadianly during the war. “We were unhappy during the war because our bandwidth was / low. Gas prices were up, and we were tired of masking,” it begins. “And when they bombed other people’s houses, we knew to / sigh and look sad.”
Kemp relates deeply to this feeling of powerlessness and frustration, but as for Auden’s provocation, she believes poetry can be an effective tool.
“It moves the heart,” she says. “And when the heart is moved, then action follows.”
The anthology’s first printing has sold out, raising about $4,000 for PEN Ukraine. A second printing is underway. Contributors have sent copies of the book to Ukrainian poets. And poets have been making videos of themselves reading their poem.
Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine, edited by Penn Kemp and Richard-Yves Sitoski. (Pendas Productions/Laughing Raven Press, May 2022, 121 pages). ISBN 978-1-927734-37-7
by Nick Beauchesne, PhD, MA, BA, Sessional Instructor Department of English and Modern Languages, U. of Alberta
“Canadian editors and poets Penn Kemp and Richard-Yves Sitoski have assembled 61 poems by 48 of Canada’s most prominent poets in response to the current crisis in Ukraine and other perils afflicting our troubled times.
The underlying question of this anthology is: what can poetry do in the face of such horror? The answer is complex and manifold.
As one contributor, Susan McMaster posits, “Poetry is the voice of the spaces between the words, of the heart between the beats, of the caught breath before the long exhale… Poetry hums and sings and says what can’t be said” (63). It traces the edges of the inarticulable.
In a similar exercise, Marilyn Bowering offers this glimpse into the “emptying of Mariupol,” her attempt to comprehend bombings and mass evacuations:
its people slipping on shoes, into cars, along the secret paths of their bodies. They are the silence inside missiles, and bombs. They are the silence. (25)
These lines are all the more haunting with the knowledge that they were written in March—while there was still a Mariupol to evacuate. Now, that city is little more than rubble, “destroyed completely,” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky bluntly stated in early May.
In attempting to articulate these perils, Kemp and Sitoski affirm in the Preface that, “while this book was inspired by Ukraine, it can serve as catalyst for us to see the human tragedy of all the world’s conflicts” (xiv). Offering comfort, community, and solidarity is a beginning—not only for those suffering in Ukraine, but in Palestine, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, and anywhere else gripped by terrorism and war.
Beyond solidarity, poetry can be a call to action. As Kemp later writes in one of her poems, the poetry itself, along with the too-familiar phrase, “thoughts and prayers,” need be accompanied by material support:
May Kyiv keep safe beneath the holy mantle of Maty Zemlya, Mother Earth as if prayers were enough. Send money. (48).
Profits from the book will be directed toward PEN Ukraine’s efforts to provide the Ukrainian cultural community with evacuation and resettlement help. In purchasing this striking, heartbreaking, and beautiful book, one supports not only Canadian artists, some with Ukrainian roots, but also directly helps the people affected by the Russian “special operation.” Poems in Response to Peril is a marker for these times, a resounding, polyvocal cry of “enough!” that will echo into history.”
Poems in Response to Peril: An Anthology in Support of Ukraine edited by Penn Kemp and Richard-Yves Sitoski contains 61 poems by 48 of Canada’s prominent poets. They were written in March 2022 when Putin’s military planes were dropping bombs on Ukrainians and his artillery was targeting the Ukrainian army and civilians. The book is a gesture of Canadian poets’ solidarity with the people of Ukraine, including its cultural workers and activists.
The book abounds with questions as people throughout the world are trying to digest the enormity of this crisis in Europe. Poets Yvonne Blomer, Kate Braid, Katerina Vaughan Fretwell, Karl Jirgens, Blain Marchand, Marianne Micros and Greg Santos all resort to questions in an effort to make sense of the tragedy that befell the sovereign East-European nation following the Russian attack on its soil on February 24.
What was the first thing you noticed? the wind was a hammer birds in trees were sparks the sun did nothing but cast shadows. The dog’s loose ears became sheeted ghosts (Yvonne Blomer, “Poem with Questions”)
Who are we? What do we want? Current possibilities reduce intention, trying. (Karl Jirgens, “Words of Peril in 3 Parts”)
When the thunder assaults you, you wonder if your home’s hard-won memories survive? (Katerina Vaughan Fretwell, “Kudos, Dear Ukrainians”)
As the world was watching the conflict unfold and start to affect growing numbers of civilians in Ukraine, the people sympathetic with their plight were unable to dismiss the Ukrainians’ need to survive. Several authors in the anthology depict the difficulties of those who were forced to flee their homes:
In bed at night, I listen to the emptying of Mariupol, its people slipping on shoes, into cars, along the secret paths of their bodies. (Marilyn Bowering, “Mariupol Water”)
The mothers and bundled children. The elderly in wheelchairs or hobbling with canes. Terror sketched and straining each of their faces. (Blaine Marchand, “About suffering they were never wrong”)
The anthology includes a poem by renowned Ukrainian poet Dmytro Kremin (1953-2019) with what seems like a glimpse into the future:
…The ashes of burnt fires are flying, flying down out of the sky and blocking a stereoscope. (“The Ashes of an Eyewitness”, translated by Svetlana Ischenko and Russell Thornton)
Animals belonging to their besieged owners also had to be rescued from the advancing troops:
In Ukraine, poems still spill from the wings of storks, the mythopoetic pinions of dream horses along with the whinnying of flesh and blood ones transported in trucks away from the killing fields. (Susan McCaslin, “Poetry in Times of Peril”)
The contributors to the anthology paint a picture of the fighters who resist the aggressor:
A Ukrainian man protests in front of Russian soldiers, a crack, he crumples. A grandmother armed with Googled instructions prepares Molotov cocktails in her back yard. A man climbs onto a moving Russian tank to defiantly wave a Ukrainian flag. (Jennifer Wenn, “Kaleidoscope for the Invasion of Ukraine, February 24 2022”)
The poems in the anthology range from a simple human heart’s cry in protest against harm inflicted on others (Albert Dumont, “The Tears I Shed”) to straightforward advice on what ammunition needs to be sent to the Ukrainian army (Jay Yair Brodbar, “What We Need Beyond the Pale”).
Some of the poets probe their faith in adversity. David C. Brydges invokes the story of the icon of Our Lady of Kyiv, a holy image that was commissioned for a church in Kyiv and stolen by Russian invaders in the 12th century. The Canadian poet speaks about his search for answers to the world’s problems and eventually finds comfort in the iconic image.
The poets represented in the publication condemn Putin, calling him an ‘errant madman’ (Penn Kemp, “Fast Poem for Ukraine”), a lunatic from whose despotism innocent people have to suffer. In his response to W.H. Auden’s famous adage that “poetry makes nothing happen”, Robert Girvan points out that
…war and power are not all, not the best or most important part.
When one sees a blackbird or red cardinal, they might see snowy mountains, and think of many things.
(“13ish Ways Poems Make Something Happen”)
Poems in Response to Peril is a joy to read and a reminder to all of us that a shared grief is easier to endure. The profits from it will be going to PEN Ukraine.”
Frances Roberts Reilly, Tanis MacDonald and Penn Kemp, about to read at the launch on the gorgeous Blackfriars Bistro patio. Photo: Bob Reilly
Promoting POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL
April 2, 2022. Zoom, A Gathering of Poets in Response to Peril, #poetsinresponsetoperil. A 3-hour international Zoom reading, now up on YouTube > Poets in Response to Peril). The Zoom featured more than 30 of the book’s Canadian contributors, expressing solidarity with those afflicted by war: https://www.rsitoski.com/event-details/poets-in-response-to-peril for National Poetry Month. Along with host Richard-Yves Sitoski, we celebrated How Poems Matter. Why Poems Matter. This “Oh!Sound Reading” https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/2022/03/04/a-gathering-of-poets-in-response-to-peril/ was a cross-Canada marathon with 100 participants. Sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets.
April 9, 2022. “Slava Ukraini“, Summerland, BC. “It was a really good community event with music and words, including some history of Ukraine and its culture and poems Patricia Keeney sent us from a brand new anthology by Canadian poets.” Peter Hay, organizer Poems by Patricia Keeney, Penn Kemp and Daphne Marlatt were read at this fundraiser for Ukraine.
May 28 2022. Launch of Poems in Response to Peril , Blackfriars Bistro, London ON. Readings by Andreas Gripp, Penn Kemp, Tanis MacDonald, Frances Roberts Reilly, Richard-Yves Sitoski, Solo and Jennifer Wenn on the glorious Blackfriars Bistro patio.
Ukrainian poet and publisher Sergiy Kuzin has translated my poem “Kind of Intimate” from POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL into Ukrainian! Its title in Ukrainian is the beautiful “Touches Souls, I Suppose”. He uses the notions of “untouchable (nedoTORkany) path” vs “untrodden (neTORovany) path” to render word-play in the final stanza. A version of my poem is up on https://poets.ca/npm22-blog-penn-kemp/.
About the anthology, Kuzin writes, “Poems in Response to Peril is a joy to read and a reminder to all of us that a shared grief is easier to endure.”
Sergiy Kuzin is the founder and publisher of Zaza, an independent magazine of Ukrainian poetry and fiction. He has also translated the poetry of Brandon Melendez and Ian Burnette. He lives in the Kyiv region, in the village of Blystavytsia near Bucha.
Торкає душі, напевно
Що може торкати більше, ніж постійний потік інформації з наших екранів, образи, що залягли на потиличній частці головного мозку,
закарбувалися там назавжди? Що може торкати більше, ніж глибока любов, яка прив’язує родину, друзів та іноземні обличчя,
які ми бачимо в мережі, до відомої нам орбіти? Знаючи, що всі ми – єдиний, з багатьма кінцівками, звір, що називається людством.
З ним ви чи проти нього, але він стоятиме цілий і сам. Що може торкати більше, ніж весілля у фронтових умовах, коли наречена тримає
букет між собою і нареченим – обидва в камуфляжі, обидва готові захищатися? Коли гострий метал пронизує плоть, сталь угризається в кості.
Кровотік наповнений звуками, що засіли у коридорах розбомбленого пологового будинку,
дітьми, що залишаються під його уламками, не кажучи вже про немовлят і породіль. Що може торкати більше, ніж мить,
коли думка набирає форми завдяки ручці й паперу, пальцям і клавіатурі? Перед тим як слова постануть
і стануть на місця – священний зв’язок літер, узгоджений рух уперед, що не існував раніше, до того, як зродився
вірш? Наслідок – яскраво-червона плацента полегшення, спосіб удячності, відкритий стражданням, – за те, що залишається
щось, поки гинуть цивілізації, і цей занепад порожньо дзвенить у наших вухах. У наш час і поза ним, коли
ламаються перепони історії, те, що торкає нас сьогодні, не є недоторканим шляхом. Воно є шляхом неторованим.
Sergiy Kuzin
Kind of Intimate
What could be more intimate than constant streaming on our screens, images plastered on the occipital nerve, imprinted, planted, permanent?
What more intimate than a deep love roping in family, friends, and foreign faces on the Web to our known orbit?
In the knowledge that we are all one multi-armed huge beast we call humanity. backed for or against, wholly, alone.
What could be more intimate than a marriage under siege, the bride’s bouquet between her and him in camouflage, weapons at the ready?
A sharp pang of metal piercing flesh, the rude intrusion of steel into bone. Sounds haunting the bloodstream linger along what once were halls
of the bombed maternity hospital, children still under the walls, not to speak of infants, mothers in labour.
What more intimate than the time when thought coalesces into form between pen and paper, text onto key board? Before words arise and fall
in place, the sacred alphabet arranged just so in orderly progression that never before has taken shape, as the poem is birthed? Its aftermath, crimson placenta
of relief, grief given way to gratitude that something remains while entire civilizations collapse and fall. The fall resounding rings hollow down our ears.
In our time and beyond, throughout the barriers of history being broken, the current kind of intimate intimidates us not into submission—but to action.
See Penn Kemp’s video reading, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhDPMd4iqlI&t=4s. This poem was commissioned by the League of Canadian Poets for National Poetry Month 2022 on the theme of Poetry and Intimacy.
The anthology is available for $30 plus post from Richard-Yves Sitoski, r_sitoski@yahoo.ca
Penn Kemp 