✨Virtual Book Launch: Saturday, February 10,12:30pm EST. Pour a cup of tea and get cozy for this virtual book launch and poetry reading from Rose Garden Press’s new release, Intent on Flowering, with three poets: Penn Kemp, Katie Jeresky and Jessica Lee McMillan. Please register here: @wordsfestival. On the Lunar New Year! Free. Chapbooks are available for purchase @rosegarden_press.
✨In-person Poetry Readings:Chapbooks will be available for purchase.
Sunday, February 25, 12:30-1:30pm EST. Join Penn Kemp and Katie Jeresky with cellist Luc Julian in Heeman’s lush tropical greenhouse for a special in-person poetry reading of Rose Garden Press’s new release, Intent of Flowering. Heeman’s Greenhouse, 20422 Nissouri Road, Thorndale, ON N0M 2P0. Grab a tea, coffee, shake or sundae when you arrive at the in-house Cafe Beanery and join us in the houseplants section! RSVP by sending an email to katiejeresky@gmail.com. Free.
✨ Sunday, April 28, 2-4pm. Poetry Reading among the Alpacas by Penn Kemp and Katie Jeresky with cellist Luc Julian. 2211 Egremont Drive, RR5 Strathroy ON, N7G 3H6. Contact: Thandi, info@timbuktufarms.com. Celebrating National Poetry Month on the theme of Weather. By donation.
✨ Wednesday, June 5, 6:30-8pm. Black Mallard Reading Series features Penn Kemp and D.A. Lockhart, Mykonos Restaurant, 572 Adelaide St. N., London ON. It’s World Environment Day! https://blackmallardpoetry.wixsite.com/home. Free.
✨ Saturday, June 15, 10:30-11:30am. Sounds of the Forest: Music and Poetry Reading at Meadowlily Nature Reserve on the south side of the Thames River between Highbury Avenue and Meadowlily Road, London, ON N6G 2N5. Passport to Nature in support of Thames Talbot Land Trust, https://www.thamestalbotlandtrust.ca/passport_to_nature. Free.
“Celebrating the Forest of Forest City” , online exhibit launch, Embassy Cultural House, London ON. www.embassyculturalhouse.ca Curators Emmy Meredith, Ron Benner, Jamelie Hassan and Olivia Mossuto: embassyculturalhouse@gmail.com
✨Jim Andrews from Vancouver included my poem “Lethologica” in his wondrous See of Po series: https://seaofpo.vispo.com?p=pk. And on Jim Andrews’s manifesto, manual, and magazine, https://vispo.com/writings/essays/Sea_of_Po2.pdf: P. 61. For Sea of Po, I wanted to write a language poem that would lend itself to animation, to movement, to be read in swirls, side to side, and yet form couplets. Hence, Lethologica, so that the word is not lost in Lethe’s forgetful current, but is re-imagined as image, as colour.
✨Upcoming In-person Poetry Readings
Sunday, February 25, 12:30-1:30pm EST. Join Penn Kemp and Katie Jeresky with cellist Luc Julian in Heeman’s lush tropical greenhouse for a special in-person poetry reading of Rose Garden Press’s new release, Intent of Flowering. Heeman’s Greenhouse, 20422 Nissouri Road, Thorndale, ON N0M 2P0. Grab a tea, coffee, shake or sundae when you arrive at the in-house Cafe Beanery and join us in the houseplants section! RSVP by sending an email to katiejeresky@gmail.com. Free. Chapbooks available for purchase.
✨ Monday, April 22. Earth Day.
✨ Sunday, April 28, 2-4pm. Poetry Reading among the Alpacas by Penn Kemp and Katie Jeresky with cellist Luc Julian. 2211 Egremont Drive, RR5 Strathroy ON, N7G 3H6. Contact: Thandi, info@timbuktufarms.com. Celebrating National Poetry Month on the theme of Weather. By donation.
✨ Wednesday, June 5, 6:30-8pm. Black Mallard Reading Series features Penn Kemp and D.A. Lockhart, Mykonos Restaurant, 572 Adelaide St. N., London ON. It’s World Environment Day! https://blackmallardpoetry.wixsite.com/home. Free.
✨ Saturday, June 15, 10:30-11:30am. Sounds of the Forest: Music and Poetry Reading at Meadowlily Nature Reserve on the south side of the Thames River between Highbury Avenue and Meadowlily Road, London, ON N6G 2N5. Passport to Nature in support of Thames Talbot Land Trust, https://www.thamestalbotlandtrust.ca/passport_to_nature. Free. ✨ “Celebrating the Forest of Forest City”, online exhibit launch, Embassy Cultural House, London ON. www.embassyculturalhouse.ca. Curators Emmy Meredith, Ron Benner, Jamelie Hassan and Olivia Mossuto: embassyculturalhouse@gmail.com
Now up! Intent on Flowering, anthology, Rose Garden Press, 2024. Contributing poets: Katie Jeresky, Penn Kemp and Jessica Lee McMillan. This remarkable collection is curated by Rose Garden Press for their handprinted book. Contact: hello@rosegardenpress.ca, Michelle Arnett and Michele Vanderwal @rosegarden_press. To order: https://rosegardenpress.ca/intent-on-flowering/
Kevin Spenst, “Chuffed About Chapbooks” on my project, “Poem for Peace in Many Voices”. SubTerrain issue #95, 2024.
Recently and Recording ✨Virtual Book Launch: Saturday, February 10, 2024. Book launch and poetry reading from Rose Garden Press’s new release, Intent on Flowering, with three poets: Penn Kemp, Katie Jeresky and Jessica Lee McMillan. On the Lunar New Year! Missed this lovely weaving of voices? Here it is https://fb.watch/q7u_oWXOJq/! Thanks @RoseGardenPress ! Special #thanks to @JoshLambier https://wordsfest.ca/ @PHWestern
Recently Read... January 17, 7 pm. Antler River Poetry, Celebrating small presses! Karen Schindler and Rob McClennan. With readings by Katie Jeresky and Penn Kemp from Intent on Flowering, Rose Garden Press, hello@rosegardenpress.ca, rosegardenpress.ca
For my granddaughter. One day we’ll read Poems to Ula by water. Meanwhile cellist Lucas Tenzen and I perform my poem “In Light” for her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=groiPy9t81M.
Thoughts & prayers do console, as does poetry.
A Wake
for Ula Marguerite Podesta Chalmers
Feel the net, the nest, the next step holding beloved Ula, her family and friends as we move beyond closing in to opening up, opening out to all that
cannot be known while we remain in body. We can wholly feel Ula in all her gentle, generous intensity, her fierce love, her expanding field. As she enters
the Unknown, leaving in the wake of her laugh, her sky-lit smile’s radiance, our hearts. Ready to receive everything she is and would have been. Ready to carry on what she
completed before her time, what we in our small view considered her time. May such Intelligent Beauty and Joy ever trump grief as her smile expands to every possible horizon.
May pain be left behind while we are carried forward in her Wake and held in the larger bowl of Being. With her. Without her. And truly with her. Beauty, inner and outer. Beauty.
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 pelicans’ evening beach patrol.
Gliding over the sea in formation, skimming just overhead, flapping slow time, in synch.
Ula studies the procedure, dropping my hand to edge forward, neck outstretched, arms aero-
dynamically angled. She flaps and flaps along the sand, following the pelican flight, ready
for that sudden lift. Again, again, till the last pelican has flown. Dragging her heels home,
Ula braces her body against the rising breeze, bewildered that she too can’t take off to sky
but game to try again tomorrow…
Her Orbit of Ellipsis
My granddaughter is going as Wonder Woman for Halloween. She’s practised swinging her Lariat of Truth so I’m reading up on Artemis,
protectress of young girls and the archetype for our current Wonder Woman. Arrow to hand, she alights on the mark, drawing her bow on intruders.
Artemis herds young artoi, girls of eight or so away from polis, the city, into wide, wilder woods where she reigns Queen and they her willing apprentices stay
snared till puberty. Artoi, little Bears, they follow their Great Bear into the chase and Orion hides, the hunter hunted and flung out to constellation.
My granddaughter will go trick or treating and return with a gleeful sack full of eternal returns.
Such small cosy comforts subside as the year slips at an entrance to enchantment, the larger dark that awaits us all. And the Greater Bear grins.
Grace Restaurant and Poems in Response to Peril proudly present Celebrating Ukraine: A Small Business and Artisan Market and Dinner Experience. This event will be held on Wednesday, August 23, the day before Ukrainian Independence Day.
The fundraising event will feature a daytime market from 2:00 pm-5:00 pm for Ukrainian small businesses and artists to network and sell their wares. We encourage everyone to stop by and support our newly arrived and established Ukrainian Canadian community. Ukrainian-owned businesses who are interested in participating may send inquiries to angie@gracelondon.ca.
Join us at Grace Restaurant for the Ukraine tribute dinner at 6 pm. We will serve a traditional Ukrainian cuisine-inspired menu, carefully crafted in collaboration with our Ukrainian friends to ensure authenticity and cultural integrity. Chef/owner Angela Murphy is excited to share this Ukrainian “Taste of Home”.
Poems in Response to Peril, co-edited by poets Penn Kemp and Richard-Yves Sitoski, will be featured. Nine contributing poets will read from this anthology dedicated to Ukraine, accompanied by a Ukrainian folk song played by Mary Ashton. This anthology brings together poems by some of Canada’s most prominent poets, in response to the current crisis in Ukraine and other perils afflicting our troubled times. A copy of Poems in Response to Peril will be included in the $120.00 price of the dinner. Our cheque for $3,000 from funds raised by book sales will be presented to the Aid for Artists Fund through the Canada-Ukraine Foundation.
Celebrating Ukraine is a joint effort to honour and support the Ukrainian arts, culture and people as the war rages on. Part of the proceeds from this event will be donated to the Canada-Ukraine Foundation.
Tickets can be purchased at Grace Restaurant (215 Dundas St, London, 226 667 4822) or by contacting foh@gracelondon.ca. Please join us in celebrating Ukraine!
If you’re anywhere near Toronto, I’d live to see you! Excited to be performing in collaboration with Bill Gilliam! My reading is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets.
WELCOME to the Summer Edition of the Minstrels & Bards Soirée! In the warmth, conviviality and ease of the summer, come celebrate with us on Tuesday, July 25, 2023 in The Living Room at the Tranzac Club in Tkaronto/Toronto. Doors are open 5:45pm and we start promptly at 6pm.
We’ll enter a delightful Quantum universe of poetics and performance with our features extraordinaire, Penn Kemp, a multimedia poet whose voice is rhythm, and Bill Gilliam, a composer of experimental and new music. In guest spots, a range of innovative styles with Rocco De Giacomo, Wes Rickert, and Babar Kahn.
Penn has edited many poetry anthologies, recently Poems in Response to Peril, with Richard-Yves Sitoski in support of Ukraine: https://www.rsitoski.com/poems-in-response-to-peril and https://shepherd.com/best-books/social-justice-women-and-the-environment. For service to arts and culture, Penn received both Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee and Platinum medals. The League of Canadian Poets acclaimed her as Spoken Word Artist of the year 2015, an award for lifetime achievement, as well as a Foremother of Canadian poetry and their 40th Life Member. She is on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, SoundCloud, even MySpace. Updates: pennkemp.weebly.com, pennkemp.wordpress.com and https://pennkemp.substack.com/.
Bill Gilliam is a Toronto based composer / pianist who creates and improvises jazz and new music compositions blending contemporary harmony and jazz idioms into his unique style of acoustic and prepared piano playing. His recordings include “Outside The Maze” (2023) and “Light Through Dark” (2021) with Bill McBirnie & Eugene Martynec, “Counterstasis – Refracted Voices” (2019) with Glen Hall & Joe Sorbara, “Entangled Pathways” (2017) with the Gilliam, Milmine, Pottie trio, “Ensorcell” (2012, solo piano), “Memory Vision” (electroacoustic DVD), “Signposts” as well as “Spirit Matter” and “Urban Undercurrents” with the Bill Gilliam Ensemble.
Bill has performed and recorded with Penn Kemp and played with his different ensembles in many jazz venues and festivals. Recently he performed with his improvising trio Counterstasis and special guest Kathryn Ladano (bass clarinet) at the Open Ears Festival 2023 in Kitchener. He also released a new album “Outside The Maze” in May 2023 with Bill McBirnie (flute) & Eugene Martynec (electroacoustics).
Rocco de Giacomo lives in Toronto with his wife, Lisa Keophila, a fibre artist, and his daughters, Ava and Matilda. He is a widely published poet whose work has appeared in literary journals in Canada, Australia, England, Hong Kong and the US. The author of numerous poetry chapbooks and full-length collections, his latest, Casting Out (Guernica Editions) – on the reconciliation of the author’s secular lifestyle and their deeply Evangelical upbringing – was published in April of 2023.
Wesley Rickert is a writer, director & producer of no-budget art house films and has written & produced 5 arthouse features that defy easy categorization. Between film projects he is a performance poet, noise musician, DIY audio producer, visual artist and sculptor. His writing and sound poetry embraces the irrational, cherishes original experience and strives for personal transformation at any cost. He is a regular contributor to “Maintenant -A Journal of Contemporary Dada”, Three Rooms Press, NYC, has performed with the legendary sound poet bill bissett at the Poets House, NYC, The Players Club, NYC, & for Versefest, Ottawa. He was recently a featured reader at the Art Bar in Toronto and is the director of Liberty Manor, an informal and rural artist residency in the Thousand Islands dedicated to furthering all forms of challenging expression.
Babar Khan is a Canadian writer, poet, and art photographer who grew up partly in Paris, France and partly in Toronto. His poems have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2, Rampike, and Vallum, among others. His photographs have been exhibited at Month of Photography L.A. and on Lensculture. He has also featured multiple times over the years at the Art Bar, AvantGarden, Emerging Writers, and other reading series in Toronto.
Sunday afternoon, July 9 at Timbuktu Farm was so magical we are repeating the event on September 10, 3-5 pm: please register soon on https://www.timbuktufarm.com/, if you are in the London area. Seating among the alpacas in the barn is limited. A very special, endearing occasion we invite you to enjoy, hosted by Thandi Van Wulven.
My reading was sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets.
“Penn Kemp and Robin Israel provided us with delicious poetry among the alpacas. We enjoyed ourselves immensely at Timbuktu. What an inspired idea and environment, poetry among the alpacas. I loved the juxtaposition of sound poetry with its rhythms and contrasting phonetics and a gentle interactive audience of curious alpacas, contented horses, and vocal cows. At times the children seemed spellbound. It was a perfect afternoon. ” Bryan Lavery, Writer, Culinary Experience Facilitator, Tourism Proponent, Chef/Restaurateur
“That was fun! What a peaceful, transformative experience it was to go to a reading with the alpacas, horses and cows from Timbuktu ecotourism farm. Penn Kemp started with a poem about foxes, and finished with a very engaging and interactive sound poem. Such a unique experience!” Kathy McLaughlin, Business Development Manager · Downtown London
Reading Among the Alpacas, As It Happened
Sheer Eden… and Sheared Alpacas
On Sunday, July 9, just as I entered the open barn, ready to perform, our host Thandi, normally so calm but now looking a little flustered, ushered me over to a nearby pen. There a first-time mama alpaca had given birth to a feeble little male ten minutes before. Mama Leila trusted Thandi so deeply that when she was struggling in labour, she came to Thandi for help. It was a breech birth, so as he was turning blue, Thandi had to pull the newborn out, holding all four hooves tight in one hand. He struggled to hold his bewildered head up on his scrawny, matted neck, struggled even to breathe. A friend and I stood there beaming Reiki at him as Thandi stroked his throat to open his air passage.
New mama Leila seemed indifferent, puzzled by this wobbly new creature who had so weirdly emerged after a tough labour. Several experienced mother alpacas, however, came up and nosed the baby tenderly, encouraging him into this new world, as aunties everywhere would. Could he find his mother’s udder? He soon stood up on gangly, splayed legs and staggered up under his mama, his tail to her udder, backwards the way he was born, as we began the reading. But within an hour he was gamboling outside in the pasture.
A baby alpaca is not a calf, a cub, a kit or pup or kid: it’s a cria. The term is derived from the Spanish for a baby animal, “cría”, which derives from criar “to bring up, rear, nurse”, going back to the Latin creāre “to bring into being, give birth to, cause to grow” — Indeed!
His name… we pondered… is POET! He is now thriving. Poet, the cria alpaca lives! Pics above and below.
I was listening for the hum that contented alpacas make as I performed sound poetry with the audience, but perhaps mother and baby needed some alone time to bond. The female alpacas gathered round, nibbling the food pellets that Thandi had laid in front of the chair where we read. Interesting that the females cling to one another, truly herd animals and cautious, while the males are more curious, bolder in approaching humans nose to nose, allowing themselves to be petted. How appropriate that the name for them is ‘machos’!
Because of the birth, the males were outside in the pasture, looking in the Dutch door, along with two horses, a huge one-horned Charolais cow, very friendly, and her two calves. One is a yearling steer called… Stewart, because he is bound for the stew pot in January but meanwhile is much loved. I found myself side-eyeing his flanks, his ribs, but he didn’t seem to suspect my ill intent.
The horses and cattle were allowed in at intermission to mingle with the guests, nuzzling us in a friendly way, searching for treats. Thandi handed fistfuls of pellets for all the children, and us, to feed the animals. Even the toddlers who came were enthralled. Robyn Israel started us off with the engaging story of her beloved dog, Harley who couldn’t be with us because he might in his excitement spook the alpacas. They are such gentle, mild-mannered, affectionate creatures. And what a paradise they live in, at Thandi’s place.
Timbuktu Farm is in glorious rolling green farmland, off Highway 22. It’s barely a mile from my great-grandparents’ farms, where my grandparents were born in neighbouring yellow brick homes, where my grandmother and mother were born and raised: Confederation Line, beside cousin Arthur Currie’s family farm. Near where I too was born! So I read stories from there, including the fox poems that lead off Fox Haunts. FUN! Ah, the adventures of itinerant poets!
So come and meet Poet and the sixteen other alpacas, along with a woman poet and storyteller, for a marvellous adventure in this nearby Eden. We hope to see you September 10, same time, same place, for a glorious afternoon at Timbuktu Farm, https://www.timbuktufarm.com.
Up now, 3 poems from Incrementallly: “from Night Orchestra”, “Declination”, “Bees Needs”, Interpoem: A Visual Anthology. Editor, Laura Kerr, https://sedserio.com/about
Friday, October 2O, 2:30pm. A Painterly Poet project at the 2023 Ontario Screen Creators Short Film Pitch Competition. Robyn Israel, director. DoubleTree by Hilton, 300 King St., London ON.
Saturday, October 21, 2023, Great Lakes Odyssey. live: “On this trek of the Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour we examine how climate shapes and defines culture… And poetry performance by Penn Kemp with Bill Gilliam.” From “Night Orchestra” 44.42, up now https://radio.wcmu.org/show/great-lakes-od/2023-10-17/great-lakes-odyssey-october-14-2023 On October 21, 7 pm, WBFO-NPR Buffalo/Toronto airs it. October 21, 10 pm, WCMU-NPR Central/North Michigan airs it. The reach is 100,000 listeners!
Saturday, October 21, 11:00am-1:00pm. Words Aloud, Community Poetry Workshop at M’Wikwedong Indigenous Friendship Centre, Owen Sound ON. Sounding the Muse: “Calling in the Muse, sound poet Penn Kemp presents the three stages of writing a poem: invocation, expression, and communication. This workshop explores new ways of reaching the source of creativity, evoking your Muse through sound to give form to poetry. Participants will experience the innovative power of sound poetry. Through sounding, we will tap the energy and source of inspiration. Then we will explore finding language to shape the inklings of your poem. Participants will develop an abundance of ideas and images, an enhanced awareness of structure, and more ease and delight in showing or performing work.” Contact: Richard Sitoski <r_sitoski@yahoo.ca>. See https://wordsaloud.ca!
Sunday, October 22, 2023. 12:00pm-2:00pm. Performance, Words Aloud, Owen Sound ON. Main stage event, Tom Thomson Art Gallery, Owen Sound. Featuring Barry Dempster, Kim Fahner, Penn Kemp and D.A. Lockhart. Contact: Richard Sitoski <r_sitoski@yahoo.ca>. https://wordsaloud.ca
Tuesday, November 14, 2023, 7pm ET. “Heart to Art”, video for Quai Nocent Docent (What Hurts Teaches): A Collection of Poems and Musings. The Friendly Spike Theatre. Contact: sarah.wells@live.ca
Wednesday, November 15, 2023, 6:30pm to 8:00pm. Launch of the anthology, Stones Beneath the Surface. Mykonos Restaurant, 572 Adelaide St. N., London ON https://blackmallardpoetry.wixsite.com/home/books
April 29, 2024, 7pm. Art Bar, Free Times Café, 320 College Street. Toronto, ON M5T 1S3. On College w. of Markham· (416) 967-1078. Feature, artbarpoetry@gmail.com
Recent Publications 2023
“The Winter Widow i”, “The Winter Widow ii”, stones beneath the surface: a poetry anthology, pp. 44-45. https://blackmallardpoetry.wixsite.com/home/books. November, 2023.
“Weather Vane, Whether Vain, Whither and Thither” and “Black, White and Red All Over Town”: two poems in a fine press edition of the anthology, An Avian Alphabet, Barbarian Press, 2023. An Avian Alphabet. Edited by Susan McCaslin, with woodcut prints by Edith Krause.
September 21. Patricia Keeney read poems from POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL for “Salute to Ukraine” at the Ryga Arts Festival, http://www.rygafest.ca, Summerland BC.
September 10, 3-5 pm. Reading Among the Alpacas“, with Penn Kemp and Robyn Israel. The Timbuktu Alpaca & Eco-Tourism Farm, 2211 Egremont Drive, RR5 Strathroy ON, N7G 3H6. Kid friendly! To register: https://www.timbuktufarm.com/. Contact Thandi, info@timbuktufarm.com. I’ll read from my plays, THE EPIC OF TOAD AND HERON and THE DREAM LIFE OF TERESA HARRIS. Sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. Join us for readings of new work at Timbuktu Eco-tourism Farm as alpaca roam about! A happy, peaceful place to meet and mingle with these sweet, curious and friendly animals! Kid friendly! Sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. https://www.timbuktufarm.com/event-details/reading-among-the-alpacas https://www.facebook.com/events/790127145919723/
August 16, 2023, 7:30pm. Launch of ORDERBLUR POETICS: INTERMEDIA AND AVANT-GARDISM IN CANADA, 1963-1988 (University of Calgary Press) by Eric Schmaltz. The evening will feature short readings by ERIC SCHMALTZ, BILL BISSETT, BRIAN DEDORA, PENN KEMP (virtual), PAUL DUTTON, & DANI SPINOSA. 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education, 918 Bathurst St, Toronto, ON
July 25, 2023, 5:45 pm-8 pm. Minstrels & Bards Summer Soirée 2023 Edition. Feature poet, with Bill Gilliam, featured musician. at The TRANZAC, 292 Brunswick Ave, Toronto, ON M5S 2M7. Host: Brenda Clews, Minstrels & Bards, minstrelsandbards@gmail.com. My reading is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts. Among the poems performed, Bill and I will perform Night Orchestra”. You can hear an expanded version of Bill’s and my performance of the piece here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98OEWklDcYY.
July 9, 3-5 pm. “Reading Among the Alpacas”, Feature poet, with Robyn Israel. The Timbuktu Alpaca & Eco-Tourism Farm, 2211 Egremont Drive, RR5 Strathroy ON, N7G 3H6. See https://www.timbuktufarm.com/. I read poems from Fox Haunts and A Baker’s Dozen. My reading was sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts. See https://www.facebook.com/events/580340174300919/?ref=newsfeed. E. Ruth Strebe filmed “Night Orchestra” when I was reading it with audience participation that included alpacas and…:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okzs9hnbvQc 1.231
Join us Thursday, April 27 for poems of joy with Penn Kemp!
The fabulous Blackfriars Bistro joyously celebrates National Poetry Month, #npm23. Come at 6pm for dinner, a drink or dessert, and stay for poems on the theme of JOY! Or come for poetry at 7pm.
Penn reads from odes to joy through the ages and her own recent poetry along with community readings and participatory sounding of odes:)! Admission is free but reservations are necessary if you are coming at 6pm: call (519) 667-4930.46 Blackfriars St, London N6H 1K7 https://blackfriarsbistro.com/. Contact Penn pennkemp@gmail.com, www.pennkemp.weebly.com.
Surprised by Joy
Blessed be here. Blessed be clever cardinals who vary their song into language only other cardinals interpret. Blessed be red squirrels who scold all intruders into silence below.
Blessed be hostas and fern, the mix of wild with cultivated. Blessed be the cultivated soil that allows for splendid fluorescence. Blessed be the breakers upon the shoal.
Blessed be hushed wing of crow and after landing on spruce branch, a raucous caw. Blessed be the interchange of story, space to be alone together. Blessed be the quiet.
Blessed be haecceity, an expanse of time. Blessed be completion. Blessed be night that covers the cottage in a moiré spread and seeps into warm dreams of possibility.
Blessed be old bare black cherry, dead in winter’s past blast but ready to turn now into fire’s best wood, slow-burning, hot. Blessed be the poets whose refrains
run through their still too busy brain, still listening, till dawn chorus bursts into joy. And celebration of the daily begins again in jubilation, in improbable hope, arising.
“Surprised By Joy” has been chosen as the League of Poet’s poem for JOY in National Poetry Month #npm23! It is featured April 28 on https://poets.ca/poetrypause/.
Adapted from “Surprised By Joy”, River Revery, by Penn Kemp, Insomniac Press. The poem is dedicated to Catherine Ross, much loved, much missed.
Penn Kemp 