1/1/17 Re:Solution

May your 2017 writing be inspired!

This poem is in my book, INCREMENTALS, Pendas Productions.

Re:Solution

we

weir

Virgo

weird gong

we’re going too

we’re going to be

we’re going to begin

we’re going to begin right

we’re going to begin writing and

we’re going to begin writing and purr

we’re going to begin writing and purr form

we’re going to begin writing and performing

we’re going to begin writing and performing some

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time

we’re going to begin writing and performing some diamond

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time whinney

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time whinney lick

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time whinney lick trick

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time whinney lick trick light

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time whinney lick trick light D

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time when electric light decent

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time when electric light descend through

we’re going to begin writing and performing some time when electric light descend through

fin

fin grr

finger tip

finger tip on

finger tip off

onoffonoffonoff

finger tip om

finger tip onto

finger tip onto calm

finger tip onto calm phew

finger tip onto calm pew tore

finger tip onto calm pew turkey

finger tip onto calm pew turkey bored

finger tip onto calm pew turkey bord and

finger tip onto computer board hand set

finger tip onto computer board and set us

finger tip onto computer board and set us free

we’re going to begin writing some time when electric light descend through finger tip onto computer board and set us free

maybe

Penn Kemp

Photo credit: Playwrights Guild, at our Women and Media panel, Harbourfront,
Canadian Writers’ Summit, June 2016

How we are (in)formed!

Listening to http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thesundayedition/farewell-to-2016-robert-harris-on-albums-that-changed-your-life-2nd-annual-shut-up-i-m-thinking-word-game-1.3906841/the-music-that-changed-your-world-episode-1-1.3906953.

Robert Harris’s choices are interesting, and all too telling!

The delicious Rosalind Russell sings, “Just throw your knowledge in his face… that’s the second way to lose a man…” And then George Gaynes sings for “his gentle girl, his quiet girl…” from On the Town, 1949. “We need no words./ She sees— she knows… Where is that special girl/Who is soft, soft as snow/ Somewhere /Somewhere, my quiet girl”.

Bernstein’s lyrics enforce the notion of ‘a gentle, quiet’ girl who is “a different kind of girl” from the “sharp, intellectual kind” usually picked. And so stereotypes are deeply embedded from childhood on… On the Town heralds in the ‘50’s!

Oh how things have changed… or not!

https://no1lyrics.com/song/one-hundred-easy-ways-483321
http://lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/Leonard_Bernstein:A_Quiet_Girl

“It happens over and over
I pick the sharp intellectual kind
Why couldn’t this time be different
Why couldn’t she – only be
Another kind – A different kind of girl

I love a quiet girl
I love a gentle girl”

Ah, the songs were out of context…I stand corrected, though I still question Robert Harris’s choices:)! “It was Betty Comden and Adolf Green who wrote the lyrics, Not Leonard! and if you watch the play, the hero changes his mind about the unquiet girl and gets Ruth! The song ends up being almost satirical in its proper setting.” Good to hear. 

Photo: Heidi Greco

Books read and recommended

An eclectic collection!  But then I started young:)

Books Read, 2015-6.  I’m surprised at the gender balance in books I’ve read over the last two years: I would have thought I’d read more women. You can tell I go on author-binges… Most books came from London Library, with my thanks.

David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
Caroline Adderson, Ellen in Pieces
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Jussi Adler-Olsen, The keeper of lost causes
Jussi Adler-Olsen; translated by William Frost. The hanging girl
Carmen Aguirre, Mexican hooker #1: and my other roles since the revolution
Madhur Anand, A new index for predicting catastrophes: poems
Gail Anderson-Dargatz, The Spawning Grounds
Alaa Al Aswany, The Automobile Club of Egypt

Kamal Al-Solaylee, Intolerable: a memoir of extremes

Isabel Allende, The Japanese lover: a novel
Martin Amis, The zone of interest: a novel
Amish, The secret of the Nagas

Andre Alexis, Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue
Andre Alexis, The Hidden Keys

Marguerite Andersen, The bad mother / translated by Donald Winkler
Donald Antrim, The emerald light in the air: stories
John Ashbery, Breezeway: new poems
Kevin Ashton, How to fly a horse: the secret history of creation, invention, and discovery
Kate Atkinson, Human Croquet
Kate Atkinson, God in Ruins
Kate Atkinson, Not the End of the World
Kate Atkinson, Started early, took my dog
Kate Atkinson, When will there be good news?  

Margaret Atwood, The Heart Goes Last
Margaret Atwood, Hag-Seed
Margaret Avison, The essential Margaret Avison: [poems] selected by Robyn Sarah
Mona Awad,13 ways of looking at a fat girl
Ken Babstock, On Malice
Julianna Baggott, Harriet Wolf’s Seventh Book of Wonders
Marie Annharte Baker, Indigena awry
Sarah Bakewell, At the existentialist café: freedom, being and apricot cocktails with Jean-Paul Sartre [and others]
Muriel Barbery, The Life of Elves

Jo Baker, A country road, a tree

Pat Barker, Noonday: a novel

Julian Barnes, Keeping an eye open: essays on art
Julian Barnes, The Noise of Time
James Bartleman, Exceptional circumstances: a novel
Gary Barwin, Yiddish for pirates: being an account of Moishe the Captain, his Meshugeneh life & astounding adventures, his Sarah, the horizon, books & treasure, as told by Aaron, his African grey p 110
Stephen Batchelor, After Buddhism: rethinking the Dharma for a secular age
Peter S. Beagle, We Never Talk About My Brother

Ann Beattie, The state we’re in: Maine stories

Linda Bender, Animal wisdom: learning from the spiritual lives of animals

Melanie Benjamin, The swans of Fifth Avenue
Elizabeth Berg, The dream lover: a novel

Nina Berkhout, The gallery of lost species

Wendell Berry, Our only world: ten essays

Clark Blaise, Essays on His Works, ed. J.R. (Tim) Struthers

Harold Bloom, The Daemon Knows: Literary Greatness and the American Sublime
Judy Blume, In the unlikely event
Giles Blunt, The hesitation cut
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: discovering the woman at the heart of Christianity
Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God

Erin Bow, The swan riders

Gail Bowen, What’s left behind
George Bowering, The world, I guess: poems
Joseph Boyden, Wenjack
Nadia Bozak, Thirteen Shells
Alan Bradley, Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust
Alan Bradley, Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d

Dionne Brand, Love Enough
Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord

Peter Brooks, editor with Hilary Jewett, The humanities and public life
Brené Brown, Rising strong
Brené Brown, Daring greatly: how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent and lead
Carrie Brownstein, Hunger makes me a modern girl: a memoir
Jan Bruce, Andrew Shatte, Adam Perlman, Mequilibrium: 14 days to cooler, calmer, and happier
Carol Bruneau, These good hands
Bill Bryson, The road to Little Dribbling: more notes from a small island
NoViolet Bulawayo, We Need New Names
Jessie Burton, The Muse

Steve Burrows, A Siege of Bitterns
Steve Burrows, A pitying of doves
Roberto Calasso, Ardor; translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon
Julia Cameron with Emma Lively, It’s never too late to begin again: discovering creativity and meaning at midlife and beyond
Peter Carey, Amnesia
Anne Carson, Glass, irony, and God; introduction by Guy Davenport
Anne Carson, Short talks; with a new afterword by the author and a new introduction by Margaret Christakos

Helen Castor, Joan of Arc: a history
Dana Chamblee Carpenter, Bohemian Gospel
Tracy Chevalier, Burning bright
Tracy Chevalier, At the edge of the orchard

Lee Child, Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel
Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?

Margaret Christakos, Her paraphernalias: on motherlines, sex/blood/loss & selfies
Dawson Church, The genie in your genes: epigenetic medicine and the new biology of intention

George Elliott Clarke, The Motorcyclist

Joan Clark, The Birthday Lunch

Ann Cleeves, Thin air

Hillary Clinton, Tim Kaine, Stronger together: a blueprint for America’s future

Bruce Cockburn, Rumours of glory: a memoir
J. M. Coetzee, The good story: exchanges on truth, fiction and psychotherapy

Michael C Corballis, A Very Short Tour of the Mind: 21 Short Walks Around the Human Brain

Daniel Allen Cox, Mouthquake, Arsenal Pulp Press
Joan Crate, Black apple: a novel

David Cronenberg, Consumed
Lynn Crosbie, Life Is About Losing Everything
Lorna Crozier, The wild in you: voices from the forest and the sea
Michael Crummey, Hard light Michael Crummey, Little dogs: new and selected

Amy Cuddy, Presence: bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges
Michael Cunningham, The snow queen: a novel
Michael Cunningham, A Wild Swan: And Other Tales
Michael Cunningham, A home at the end of the world
Kayla Czaga, For Your Safety Please Hold On
Roald Dahl, The BFG
Ram Dass, Polishing the mirror: how to live from your spiritual heart
Meghan Daum, The unspeakable: and other subjects of discussion
Lauren B. Davis, Against a darkening sky

Lydia Davis, Can’t and Won’t
Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy
Don DeLillo, Zero K
Patrick deWitt, Undermajordomo minor
Louis de Bernières, The dust that falls from dreams: a novel
Alain de Botton, The Consolations of Philosophy

Elisabeth de Mariaffi, The Devil You Know
Sadiqa de Meijer, Leaving Howe Island
Emily Dickinson, http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/the-online-emily-dickinson-archive.html
Annie Dillard, The Abundance
Diane di Prima, The Poetry deal
Michael Dirda, Browsings: a year of reading, collecting, and living with books
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before we visit the goddess

Sean Dixon, A God in need of help: a play in two acts (or five, if you think about it)
Sandra Djwa, Journey with no maps: a life of P. K. Page
Anthony Doerr, All the light we cannot see: a novel
Norman Doidge, The brain’s way of healing: remarkable discoveries and recoveries from the frontiers of neuroplasticity
Emma Donoghue, The Wonder

Mark Doty, Deep lane: poems
Marilyn Dumont, The Pemmican Eaters
Kat Duff, The Secret Life of Sleep
Wayne W. Dyer, Memories of heaven: children’s astounding recollections of the time before they came to earth

Umberto Eco, The Book of Legendary Lands
Umberto Eco, Numero zero
Danticat Edwidge, Untwine: a novel
Dave Eggers, A hologram for the king: a novel   And film.
William Egginton, The man who invented fiction: how Cervantes ushered in the modern world

Normandi Ellis, Dreams of Isis: a woman’s spiritual sojourn
Marina Endicott, Close to Hugh
Karen Enns, Ordinary hours
Karen Enns, That Other Beauty
Anne Enright, The Green Road
Louise Erdrich, LaRose
Joel Faflak & Sky Glabush, editors. (Re)imagining Regionalism

Elena Ferrante, My brilliant friend. Book one, Childhood, adolescence
Elena Ferrante, The story of a new name
Elena Ferrante, Those who leave and those who stay
Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child
Richard Flanagan, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Australian Booker prize
Tim Flannery, Atmosphere Of Hope: The Search for Solutions to the Climate Crisis
Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

Karen Joy Fowler, We are all completely beside ourselves
Jonathan Franzen, Purity
Antonia Fraser, My History: A Memoir of Growing Up

Antonia Fraser, editor. The pleasure of reading: 43 writers on the discovery of reading and the books that inspired them

Diana Gabaldon, Written in my own heart’s blood
Diana Gabaldon, The Outlandish Companion Volume Two

Neil Gaiman, The sleeper and the spindle
Neil Gaiman, The view from the cheap seats: selected nonfiction
Jonathan Galassi, Muse
Mavis Gallant, A fairly good time: with green water, green sky

Steven Galloway, The confabulist
Connie Gault, A beauty

Elizabeth George, A Banquet of Consequences: A Lynley Novel
Anne Giardini and Nicholas Giardini, Startle and illuminate: Carol Shields on writing

Camilla Gibb, This Is Happy
Douglas Gibson, Across Canada by story: A Coast-to-Coast Literary Adventure
William Gibson, The Peripheral
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Sky Gilbert, St. Francis of Millbrook
Philip Glass, Words without music: a memoir
Susan Glickman, Safe as houses: a mystery
Louise Glück, Faithful and virtuous night
Michael Golding, A poet of the invisible world
Natalie Goldberg, The great spring: writing, Zen, and this zigzag life
Katherine Govier, The Three Sisters Bar and Hotel: a novel

Catherine Graham, Her Red Hair Rises with the Wings of Insects
Laurie D. Graham, Settler Education
James Grainger, Harmless
Germaine Greer, White beech: the rainforest years
Philippa Gregory, The king’s curse
Philippa Gregory, The Taming of the Queen
Philippa Gregory, Three Sisters, Three Queens
Nicola Griffith, Hild
Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies
Sara Gruen, At the Water’s Edge
Hanif Kureishi, The last word
Louise Bernice Halfe, Burning in this midnight dream

Phil Hall, Conjugation

Garth Risk Hallberg, City on Fire
Jane Hamilton, The excellent Lombards

Thich Nhat Hanh, Inside the now: meditations on time
Thich Nhat Hanh, Love

Graham Hancock, Magicians of the gods: the forgotten wisdom of Earth’s lost civilisation
Kristin Hannah, The Nightingale
Rick Hanson, Meditations to change your brain: rewire your neural pathways to transform your life

Michael Harris, Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s radical makeover
Teva Harrison, In-Between Days

Nadia Hashimi, When the moon is low
Paula Hawkins, The girl on the train
Elizabeth Hay, His Whole Life
Seamus Heaney, Human Chain
Steven Heighton, The waking comes late

Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton & 639 others ; Women in Clothes
Carl Hiaasen, Skink no surrender
Tomson Highway, Fox on the ice
Tomson Highway, Caribou song
Tomson Highway, A tale of monstrous extravagance: imagining multilingualism
Oscar Hijuelos, Twain & Stanley enter paradise
Geoffrey Hill, Somewhere is such a kingdom; poems 1952-1971
Lawrence Hill, The Illegal
Lawrence Hill, Dear Sir, I intend to burn your book: an anatomy of a book burning

Jane Hirshfield, Ten windows: how great poems transform the world
Jane Hirshfield, The beauty: poems
Jane Hirshfield, editor, Women in praise of the sacred: 43 centuries of spiritual poetry by women
P.C. Hodgell, The God stalker chronicles
Alice Hoffman, The Marriage of Opposites
Linda Hogan, Intimate nature: the bond between women and animals / edited by Linda Hogan, Deena Metzger, and Brenda Peterson

Nick Hornby, Funny Girl
A. E. Hotchner, Hemingway in love: His Own Story

Michel Houellebecq, Submission

Liz Howard, Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent

Tom Howell, The Rude Story of English
Helen Humphreys, The Evening Chorus
Aislinn Hunter, The World Before Us
John Irving, Avenue of Mysteries
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant
Eowyn Ivey, The snow child: a novel
Eowyn Ivey, To the Bright Edge of the World

Greg Jenkins, Theban oracle: discover the magic of the ancient alphabet that changes lives
Maureen Jennings, Dead Ground In Between

Erica Jong, Fear of dying
Heidi Julavits, The Folded Clock
Paul Kalanith, When Breath Becomes Air
A.L. Kennedy, On writing
Christine Kenneally, The invisible history of the human race: how DNA and history shape our identities and our futures
Michael Kenyon, Astatine
Wab Kinew, The Reason You Walk
James King, Inward journey: the life of Lawren Harris

James King, The life of Margaret Laurence

Laurie R. King, The murder of Mary Russell: a novel of suspense featuring Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes

Mary Russell’s War And other stories of suspense

Stephen King, Finders keepers: a novel
Michael Kinsley, Old age: a beginner’s guide
Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything
Marie Kondo, Spark joy: an illustrated master class on the art of organizing and tidying up

Marie Kondo, The life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing
Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, All the Broken Things
Hanif Kureishi, The Last Word
Jhumpa Lahiri, In other words; translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
M. Travis Lane, Crossover

Patrick Lane, Washita
Lori Lansens, The Mountain Story
Harper Lee, Go Set a Watcher
Ursula K. Le Guin, Steering the craft: a twenty-first-century guide to sailing the sea of story

Ursula K Le Guin, The lathe of heaven: a novel

Donna Leon, Falling in love
Donna Leon, The waters of eternal youth
Ben Lerner, 10:04
Ben Lerner, The hatred of poetry

Christopher Levenson, Night vision
Stephen Levine, Becoming Kuan Yin: the evolution of compassion
Tim Lilburn, The names

Tracey Lindberg, Birdie
Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman, Spontaneous evolution: our positive future and how to get there from here
Alex Lloyd with Ben Johnson, The healing code: 6 minutes to heal the source of your health, success, or relationship issue ’
Scott Lynch, The Lies of Locke Lamora
Ben Macintyre, A spy among friends
Gregory Maguire, After Alice
Emily St. J. Mandel, Station Eleven
Alberto Manguel, Curiosity
Dennis Maloney, Listening to Tao Yuan Ming
Hilary Mantel, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher

Stephen Marche, The Hunger of the Wolf
Yann Martel, The High Mountains of Portugal

Garth Martens, Prologue for the age of consequence
Giuseppe Mazzotta, Reading Dante
Colum McCann, Thirteen Ways of Looking
Ian McEwan, The child in time
Ian McEwan, Nutshell

Ami McKay, The Witches of New York
Don McKay, Angular Unconformity
Robert McKee, Dialogue: the art of verbal action for the page, stage, and screen
Sean Michaels, Us Conductors
Valerie Mills-Milde, After Drowning
David Mitchell, Slade House
Tara Mohr, Playing big: find your voice, your mission, your message
JLisa Moore, Open: stories
Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
Toni Morrison, God Help the Child
Erin Moure, Kapusta
Jane Southwell Munro, Grief notes & animal dreams
Jane Munro, Blue Sonoma
Colleen Murphy, Armstrong’s war
George Murray, Glimpse: selected aphorisms
Susan Musgrave, A taste of Haida Gwaii: food gathering and feasting at the edge of the world

Ralph Nader, Unstoppable: the emerging left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state
Azar Nafisi, The republic of imagination: America in three books
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

Pablo Neruda, Isla Negra / poems by Pablo Neruda; edited by Dennis Maloney
Christiane Northrup, Goddesses never age: the secret prescription for radiance, vitality, and well-being
Joyce Carol Oates, Soul at the white heat: inspiration, obsession, and the writing life

Edna O’Brien, The Little Red Chairs
Flannery O’Connor, A prayer journal
Nuala O’Connor, Miss Emily
Alexandra Oliver, Let The Empire Down
Mary Oliver, Blue horses
Mary Oliver, Dog songs: thirty-five dog songs and one essay
Mary Oliver, Felicity
Alice Oswald, Memorial: a version of Homer’s Iliad; with an afterword by Eavan Boland

Cynthia Ozick, Metaphor & Memory
Cynthia Ozick, Critics, monsters, fanatics, and other literary essays

Helen Oyeyemi, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
P.K. Page, Kaleidoscope: selected poems
Kurt Palka, The Piano Maker
Orhan Pamuk, A strangeness in my Mind Being the Adventures and Dreams of Mevlut Karatas, a Seller of Boza, and of His Friends, and Also a Portrait of Life in Istanbul Between 1969 and 2012 From Many Different Points of View
Tim Parks, Where I’m reading from: the changing world of books
Sooyong Park; foreword by John Vaillant, Great soul of Siberia : passion, obsession, and one man’s quest for the world’s most elusive tiger
Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister
Ann Patchett, This is the story of a happy marriage
Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

Molly Peacock, Alphabetique, 26 Characteristic Fictions
Soraya Peerbaye, Tell: poems for a girlhood

Louise Penny, The nature of the beast: a Chief Inspector Gamache novel
Louise Penny, A Great Reckoning

David Perlmutter, Brain Maker: the power of gut microbes to heal and protect your brain—for life

Alison Pick, Between gods: a memoir
Jodi Picoult, Leaving Time
Stephen Pinker, Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
Richard Powers, Orfeo
Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
Terry Pratchett, A slip of the keyboard: collected non-fiction
Terry Pratchett, Mrs Bradshaw’s handbook: an illustrated guide to the railway by Mrs Georgina Bradshaw; produced in association with Ankh-Morpork & Sto Plains Hygienic Railway.
Terry Pratchett, The shepherd’s crown

Terry Pratchett, The Long Cosmos

Francine Prose, Reading Like a Writer: a guide for people who love books and for those who want to write them

Annie Proulx, Barkskins

Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh, The path: what Chinese philosophers can teach us about the good life
Edna O’Brien, The Love Object

Edna O’Brien, The Red Chair
Lisa Randall, Dark matter and the dinosaurs: the astounding interconnectedness of the universe

John Raymond, Tin House, The world split open: great authors on how and why we write

Paula Reeves. CD, Lighting the Forbidden Lamp: A Woman’s Journey to the Self: The myth of Eros and Psyche Retold

Paula Reeves, CD, Every Woman’s Story Cinderella and Her Sisters: The Shadow Side of Envy

Monty Reid, Meditatio placentae: poems
Raziel Reid, When Everything Feels Like the Movies
Ruth Rendell, The girl next door
Ruth Rendell, Dark corners
Nino Ricci, Sleep
Adrienne Rich, Diving into the wreck: poems, 1971-1972

Adrienne Rich, The dream of a common language: poems 1974-1977

Tanis Rideout, Arguments with the lake
Tanis Rideout, Above all things
Marilynne Robinson, Lila
Marilynne Robinson, Balm of Gilead
Jennifer Robson, Moonlight over Paris: a novel
Leon Rooke, The April poems
Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram
Robbie Robertson, Testimony

Peter Robinson, When the Music’s Over

Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer, Reading matters: what the research reveals about reading, libraries, and community

Hannah Rothschild, The Improbability of Love

J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts I and II
Armand Garnet Ruffo, Norval Morrisseau: Man Changing into Thunderbird
Rumi, Soul fury: Rumi and Shams Tabriz on friendship / translations by Coleman Barks
Salman Rushdie, Two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights: a novel
Sarah Ruhl, Dear Elizabeth: a play in letters from Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell and back again
Richard Russo, Everybody’s Fool
Oliver W Sacks, On the move: a life
Robyn Sarah, My Shoes Are Killing Me

Jocelyne Saucier, And The Birds Rained Down
John Ralston Saul, The Comeback
Lisa Robertson, Cinema of the present
Paul Savoie, Nocturnes

Lisa Scottoline, Keep Quiet
Nazneen Sheikh, The Place of Shining Light – House of Anansi
Stacy Schiff, The Witches: Salem, 1692
Stacy Schiff, Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov): portrait of a marriage
Anakana Schofield, Malarky
Anakana Schofield, Martin John

The Shambhala Sun and Andrea Miller, editors, Buddha’s daughters: teachings from women who are shaping Buddhism in the West
Barbara Shapiro, The Art Forger

Dr. Vandana Shiva, Sacred seed / introduction; essays by Patriarch Bartholomew, Pir Zia Inayat-         Khan, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje
Leonard Shlain, Leonardo’s brain: understanding da Vinci’s creative genius

Jane Smiley, Some luck
Jane Smiley, Horse heaven
Jane Smiley, Early warning
Jane Smiley, Golden age
Alexander McCall Smith, The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café
Alexander McCall Smith, Sunshine on Scotland Street: a 44 Scotland Street novel
Alexander McCall Smith, The novel habits of happiness
Alexander McCall Smith, What W.H. Auden can do for you
Ali Smith, Artful
Ali Smith, How To Be Both
Ali Smith [collected by], The book lover
Dominic Smith; The Last Painting of Sara De Vos; narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

Murdoch Neil Smith, Boo: a novel
Patti Smith, The M Train
Tracy K Smith, Life on Mars
Tracy K Smith, Ordinary light: a memoir

Wilbur Smith, Desert God: A Novel of Ancient Egypt
Mary Soderstrom, River music: a novel
Karen Solie, The road in is not the same road out

Carolyn Marie Souaid, This World We Invented
Julia Spencer-Fleming, I shall not want
The Spoken Arts treasury. Volume II: 100 modern American poets reading their poems
William Stafford, Ask me: 100 essential poems
David Staines, editor. The worlds of Carol Shields

Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road
Ricardo Sternberg, Map of dreams
Mark Strand, Collected Works
Mark Strand, Eavan Boland, editors, The making of a poem: a Norton anthology of poetic forms
Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout, My Name Is Lucy Barton

Cordelia Strube, On the shores of darkness, there is light
J.R. (Tim) Struthers, ed. Clark Blaise, Essays on His Works

Noah Strycker, The Thing with Feathers
Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva
Margaret Sweatman, Mr. Jones
Graham Swift, England and other stories
Graham Swift, Mothering Sunday
Magda Szabo, The door; introduction by Ali Smith
Wisława Szymborska, Map: collected and last poems; edited by Clare Cavanagh
Diana Tamblyn, From the earth to Babylon, Book one, the story of Gerald Bull & the supergun
James Tate, Dome of the hidden pavilion : new poems
Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to walk in the dark: because sometimes God shows up at night

Patrick Taylor, An Irish doctor in peace and at war: an Irish country novel
Madeleine Thien, Do not say we have nothing

Joan Thomas, The Opening Sky
Judith Thompson, White biting dog & other plays
Russell Thornton, The hundred lives
Kim Thúy, Ru
Sara Tilley, Duke
Colm Toibin, Nora Webster
Colm Tóibín, On Elizabeth Bishop
Colm Toibin, Brooklyn

Kim Trainor, Karyotype
Tomas Tranströmer, The great enigma: new collected poems; translated from Swedish by Robin Fulton
Rose Tremain The American Lover
Linda Tucker; foreword by Andrew Harvey. Saving the white lions: one woman’s battle to save Africa’s most sacred animal
Anne Tyler, The beginner’s goodbye
Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread
Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl
Luis Alberto Urrrea, Into the beautiful North : a novel
Jane Urquhart, The Night Stages
David Usher, Let the elephants run : unlock your creativity and change everything
John Vaillant, The Jaguar’s Children
Guy Vanderhaeghe, Daddy Lenin and Other Stories
Mario Vargas Llosa, The discreet hero
M. G Vassanji, Nostalgia: a novel
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Anima Mundi
Norah Vincent, Adeline: a novel of Virginia Woolf
Colleen Wagner, Home

Jo Walton, Among Others

Sarah Waters, The paying guests

Phyllis Webb, Peacock Blue, The Collected Poems

Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

Robert J. Wiersema, Black Feathers
E. O. Wilson, The meaning of human existence
Simon Winchester, Pacific: silicon chips and surfboards, coral reefs and atom bombs, brutal dictators, fading empires, and the coming collision of the world’s superpowers
Kathleen Winter, Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a New Northwest Passage
Michael Winter, Into the blizzard: walking the fields of the Newfoundland dead
Jeanette Winterson, The gap of time: The Winter’s Tale retold

David Whyte, The house of belonging
Kym Wolfe, Conversations with the artist Philip Aziz
Tom Wolfe, The Kingdom of Speech

Susan J. Wolfson, Reading John Keats
Marion Woodman’s CD, Emily Dickinson and the Demon Lover

Marion Woodman’s CD, Holding the Tension of Opposites

Marion Woodman’s CD, Rolling Away the Stone

Marion Woodman’s CD, Sitting by the Well

Marion Woodman and Robert Johnson’s CD, When Souls Meet

Richard B. Wright, A life with words: a writer’s memoir
Richard B. Wright, Nightfall
Ronald Wright, The gold eaters

Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

Alissa York, The Naturalist
Deanna Young, House Dreams
David Zinczenko, Zero belly diet

Concrete Poetry in Concrete

Cementing relations with Guerilla Poetry!

For further information, contact Open Mic, http://www.londonpoetryopenmic.com/news and sign the Petition!

London Letter for Concrete Poetry

Dear London Arts Council,

The Sidewalk Poetry project to stamp poems into wet cement is delightful, innovative and almost literally ground-breaking. As an initiative new to Canada, it would stamp London on the poetry map in a very concrete way. It’s pop-up poetry that will last as long as the sidewalk does. Such poems will give folks pause, a moment to slow down and enjoy the word. Poetry of the people and by the people. A word, not written in water as poet Keats feared, but in cement! Poetry is eternal, and cement is the next best thing.

I heartily endorse this exciting initiative, especially as it comes from local poets and poetry lovers, Western students and Open Mic: another way of  connecting town and gown.

“I am writing to show my support for the Sidewalk Poetry project proposed by the London Open Mic Poetry organization. I believe that this is an exciting creative project that will benefit the community of London in many ways.

To quote Open Mic: “The project offers an opportunity for the city to support literary culture throughout all areas of the community. It opens new doors for engagement with poetry for all demographics, making it accessible and adding a new dimension to readership. The project will help develop interest in poetry for younger generations by bringing it into their lives outside of the dictated school atmosphere, and allowing them to discover poetry on their own terms, making it a part of their lives as they read the same poems regularly while they grow up. The project will also foster community involvement in the arts, and offer poets the honour of making a lasting impression upon their city. I believe that this project is an excellent opportunity for this city, and I eagerly await the chance to witness it unfolding in the future.”

Yes, indeed!

Yours in poetry,

Penn

Your inaugural Poet Laureate for the City of London

525 Canterbury Road, London ON N6G 2N5
http://www.mytown.ca/pennkemp

 

 

Image by Steven McCabe in our Dream Sequins, Lyrical Myrical Press

Ode for the Feast of Words

WORDSFEST is happening all weekend long at Museum London: see http://www.wordsfest.com/

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/11/03/words-fest-gives-instant-feedback
Send your responses about the Festival to http://www.wordsfestzine.com/. Work for this zine will be collected from Festival-goers on Friday and Saturday, then published and launched at the Rhino Lounge in Museum London Sunday, Nov. 6, at 5pm. Whew! Here’s my poem for the zine:

Ode for the Feast of Words

Our London Muses, amused, proclaim:

Come join our Museum feast in joy

of joining, reading, weaving a way,

riding a wave, waving a welcome,

well, come in then. Here. Hear!

Attendance’s high, attention is close.

Words are our vocation, invoking

the vocative, pro vocative, calling us,

calling on us, call sure, culture, meeting

our many cultures, collected. Whatever

the weather, we conjure com pose

words worth envisioned, inclusive in

terms of the other, for all our sakes.

Describing the arc, friends collect and

meet new, gathering poets in harmony |

with other authors.  Rhythm rhymes us.

Creating community, fusion delights

this spacious collective, call elect if

held in the London community bowl.

The Graces are present, spirits high.

Lift the cup and dance, sing, speak, tell

the tale told, win, write welcome.

O may the best manifest

fest if all festivity

Cheer and exult.

Hail and salute!

Here, here!
Penn Kemp

http://www.lfpress.com/2016/11/02/wordsfest-authors-and-eager-fans-come-out-from-under-the-covers

Photo: Toban Black

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at the CANADIAN WRITERS’ SUMMIT

The Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets is pleased to present the panel “Performing Women: Playwrights and Performance Poets” at the Canadian Writers’ Summit taking place this June at Harbourfront in Toronto. Find out more information about the Summit, and the League’s Annual Conference, at poets.ca/conference.

Friday, June 17, from 7:45 to 9 am, we will host our breakfast business meeting and open readings. We will be launching the anthology Women & Multimedia: Poetry Collaboration/Elaborations, with work from Di Brandt, Terry Carter, Penn Kemp, Moe Clark, Jude Neale, and Cathy Petch. This anthology is edited by Penn Kemp, and contains papers published in our Living Archives Series. This event is free to members of the League, and may be attended without registering for the Summit. Please contact the League office at admin@poets.ca for more information.

Saturday, June 18, from 4 to 5 pm, Miss Lou’s Room. Join six amazing panelists to discuss experiences and ideas concerning performance. Our six panelists are playwrights, performers, poets… and several are all three. We’ll conclude the panel with a Q&A. The panel is a joint venture between Playwrights Guild and the League of Poets. We will be launching PERFORMING WOMEN, an anthology with papers by the panelists, edited by Penn Kemp. It will also be available through the League, or online through playwrightsguild.ca. This panel is only open to Summit registrants. Visit poets.ca/conference to find out more information about registration and pricing. Miss Lou’s Room is located on the second floor of the Bill Boyle Artport, along the south side overlooking the Natrel Pond/Rink and the lake. See www.harbourfrontcentre.com/venues/misslousroom/

Panelists:

Kelly Jo Burke, “Why Ducks, Anyway?”

Cornelia Hoogland, “Red Dresses Hang from the Trees and Towers: Red and Rapunzel are Missing”

Penn Kemp, “I am translated: How does multimedia give form to a poem’s alternate expression?”

Catherine Kidd, “Zoomorphic Poetics (or, Why I Write So Many Poems About Wildlife)”

Susan McMaster, “How does collaboration enhance performance poetry? The Intimate Power of Co-Creation”

Moe Clark will be performing from her piece in WOMEN AND MULTIMEDIA.

Photo by Daniela Sneppova, cover of WOMEN AND MULTIMEDIA

Q & A Featured, Playwright’s Guild of Canada

• http://www.playwrightsguild.ca/news/featured-playwright-q-penn-kemp
• What do you hope to get out of the Canadian Writers’ Summit 2016, a conference with writers across all disciplines?

What a celebration of Canadian writing in all its forms! Such an opportunity on such a scale is unprecedented in Canada and a terrific occasion for synergy. It will be fun to meet old friends from across the country and to hear and meet writers new to me.

• What do you see as the role of the playwright within the greater Canadian writing community?

By their public nature, plays have a great sense of community and collaboration, involving so many— whether on stage, off stage, or in the audience. Other writing forms are more private or personal: the author of a poem or novel is single

Plays written with the local in mind bring that sensibility wherever they are performed across Canada, so that we get to know each other better, experiencing different communities and perspectives in their public expression. The particular becomes universal.

I’m closely tied to the idea of collective in writing and co-creating plays. For me playwriting is an interactive political act as the actors are so immediately present and engaged with the audience. The stage offers a chance for dialogue among opposing personalities, forces, themes, opinions: that’s what makes up a drama.

I think our deepest purpose as playwrights hasn’t changed since Aristotle stated claimed that drama should portray a form of truth. Molière claimed that tragedy might be heroic, but comedy must hold the mirror to nature. To continue the idea that plays reflect nature as well as society, I can but quote Hamlet in his advice to the players:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature:
for any thing so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose
end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as ’twere the
mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own
image, and the very age and body of the time his form and
pressure.

• You will be speaking on the Performing Women: Playwrights and Performance Poets panel on Saturday, June 18^th. How did this panel come together?

Every year, the Feminist Caucus of the League of Canadian Poets publishes a chapbook. At the annual League meeting last June, I suggested the topic, Women and Multimedia, and agreed to edit such a work. Ideas proliferated so quickly that it soon became apparent that we’d need another anthology: Performing Women: Playwrights and Performance Poets, for which I put out a call. What started off as chapbooks soon expanded to 70-80 pages each. The two anthologies I edited will be launched at the Summit. See www.poets.ca/feministcaucus. We are also hoping to produce a CD, Performing Women, from the panel proceedings.

Our project is a joint venture between Playwrights Guild and the League of Canadian Poets. How wonderful to see the close and keen co-operation between our writers’ organizations in supporting both the panel and the anthology— a collaboration to be celebrated in itself! With thanks to Anne Burke, chair of the Feminist Caucus and publisher; the League of Canadian Poets staff; and Robin Sokolski from Playwrights Guild of Canada: they were midwives to this anthology.

Our panelists are playwrights, performers, poets… and several are all three. Kelley Jo Burke and Cornelia Hoogland were sponsored by the Guild of Canadian Playwrights. Catherine Kidd, Susan McMaster and I were sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets. Sheri-D will be with us in spirit: her work is in the anthology

Each panelist will present her experience and ideas concerning performance— reading from her essay or performing work that illustrates her points. We’ll conclude with a Q & A. I’m truly honoured to work with such talented co-creators. It is inspiring to hear the personal stories that have transcended and unfolded with creases the tumultuous experience of twisting experience and ideas into art

• Tell us about the anthology you’re launching at this event that is being published in the League of Canadian Poets’ Feminist Caucus Archive series.

“Playwrights and Performance Poets: the Panel, the Anthology”

Here’s an anthology that surges with energy to create a resonating concert of variety and scope. These pieces are not just lifted off the page: they are singing, dancing spheres of possibility, sparking new connections. So many threads weave through the works. With titles like these, how could you not read on?

Kelley Jo Burke, “Why Ducks, Anyway?”
Cornelia Hoogland, “Red Dresses Hang from the Trees and Towers: Red and Rapunzel are Missing”
Penn Kemp, “Sounding the depth, the surface resounding”
Catherine Kidd, “Zoomorphic Poetics (or, Why I Write So Many Poems About Wildlife)”
Susan McMaster, “How does collaboration enhance performance poetry? The Intimate Power of Co-Creation”
Sheri-D Wilson, “Spoken Word Poetry as Political Act”

For the cover of our anthology, I’ve chosen the red dress of REDress, contributed by Cornelia Hoogland. This emblematic installation connects us graphically to the natural world: the post comes alive as a woman wrapping her arms around herself. Cornelia writes that she had “a fulsome email discussion with women who i thought were in a better position to provide a caption. Here is what we’ve ended up with, written mostly by Maxine Matilpi:”

“This installation was inspired by Jaime Black’s REDress project, an aesthetic response to the more than 1000 missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. The location, Village Point (on Denman Island, B.C.), formerly a Pentlatch village, serves as a reminder that the story of missing and murdered Indigenous women is not only a current reality but is also deeply connected to colonial history.” Maxine Matilpi

Such a moving tribute is one of the most profound ways of stirring folks to take action for change, however it manifests. The line between actor/subject and audience dissolves in a sense of our mutual humanity. I believe that such shared participation is a core purpose of performance art, whatever guise it takes.

Performance of necessity demands a wider exploration and communication of the subjective self, as it expresses itself in the world with other people and/or other mediums. How does collaboration enhance and expand a single artist’s vision? With that sense of inquiry in mind, I called for playwrights and poets to explore the topic of women performing. Three of our contributors are primarily Spoken Word poets. It is fascinating to read how these women have expanded the possibilities of performing to include ritual and visual references as well as the resonance of sound.

Performing Women: Playwrights and Performance Poets can be read along with the Feminist Caucus anthology Women and Multimedia. All but one of the contributors to Women in Performance are also members of the League of Poets, so their work fits in beautifully. For even more synergy, take a look at these poets’ essays from Women and Multimedia: Poetry Collaboration/Elaboration: don`t these titles entice you to read on?

Di Brandt, “Wild, wild, wild woman”
Terry Ann Carter, “Poetry and the Artist’s Book
Moe Clark, “Prayer + Performance: Intersections of poetic transformation
Penn Kemp, “I am translated: How does multimedia give form to a poem’s alternate expression?”
Judith Neale, “Sum of all parts”
Cathy Petch, “De-Mystifying the Language of Tech”

Performing Women: Playwrights and Performance Poets is available from http://www.poets.ca/feministcaucus/ and the copyscript program of the Guild of Canadian Playwrights, https://www.playwrightsguild.ca/about/programs-and-services, Contact orders@playwrightsguild.ca.

5) People are perhaps most familiar with your work as a poet, especially in your capacities as the inaugural Poet Laureate of London, Ontario (2010 – 2012) and your Life Membership in the League of Canadian Poets. What drew you to playwriting? How influential is your poetic work on your playwriting? How do you balance your roles as poet, performer, and playwright?

All of my plays have begun as poems. In poetry, I can succinctly express the essence of my preoccupation in concrete lines that can then be drawn out, teased into different voices and displayed more elaborately on stage. My first concern is always with language itself, how a voice finds itself. I was drawn to playwriting when I started to hear voicesJ that grew more insistent as a theme developed. These voices erupted into dialogue and the conversation continued. Poetry is a fireball; sometimes it radiates out in different expressions into different characters.

Writing poetry is a necessarily solitary pursuit. I’m my own editor. But in plays, I depend very much on collaboration, even while the script is in process. I’ve worked with brilliant directors like Anne Anglin and Louise Fagan who have more of a dramatic sensibility than I do. They can visualize and enact the narrative thrust and arc of the drama. They can imaginatively realize the action on stage in ways that I don’t.

Sometimes, one form demands to be and experienced from the different perspectives of other art forms: a performance, a monologue, a drama. As an activist and Poet Laureate, I was able to draw attention to local and global issues in the community. When a poem can not contain such imperatives, I turn to plays or what I call Sound Opera. This is a collaborative form I developed in performance and recording over the last four decades, in a desire to lift poetry off the page to the stage. Our first performance, directed by Anne Anglin from my book, Trance Form, was in 1976 at Harbourfront. Sound Opera is based on text but it expands poetic possibilities to include voice, music and movement in expressing  narrative when emotions burst the seams of print. Anne also directed my play, What the Ear Hears Last, for Theatre Passe Muraille: a translation of my long poem, When the Heart Parts. The latter is also a Sound Opera!

The focus is different on stage. When I write plays, I am thinking politically and publicly about some topic that vexes or intrigues me. I am taking a position and attempting to persuade and to present different views. For example, my first play, ANGEL MAKERS, presented the first play dealing with abortion in Canada. Though firmly pro-choice, it presented the complex experiences of the six characters. My first radio play, BEARING DOWN, portrayed a woman in labour and its aftermath in a long sound poem on a subject that had not been articulated. What the Ear Hears Last is about a man dying in hospital, another subject that was at the time taboo, developed as well from a sound poem.

Thanks for the opportunity to articulate my writing process!

6) In a 2014 interview with Stan Burfield, you speak in great detail about your love of world mythology. How does that love translate itself into your playwriting?

Certainly my first play is based on fable and fairy tale. The Epic of Toad and Heron was created as a protest when Toronto Islanders were threatened by Metro with eviction. Instead of buttonholing Torontonians in protest, I chose to write a play that was first performed on the Island (and subsequently in schools). Even now my hero, the flying Toad, is proudly displayed on the Toronto Island flag.

Mythology for me is closely connected to the poetic spirit, where archetypes can dance more abstractly than on the stage. Perhaps my connection to mythology in theatre comes through my love of history and history’s resonance in the present. My latest play presents a Victorian woman, Teresa Harris, who marries to leave her colonial life in London ON, much as I did a century later. How does her life correspond with and differ from my own, or yours?

Another long poem, ANIMUS, had its own narrative arc that director Anne Anglin and I developed into a play, EROS RISING, Theatre Passe Muraille. It is also a Sound Opera, Re:Animating Animus . The recurring theme in both Sound Opera, poem and play is the myth of Eros and Psyche. That archetype is apparent in each title.

7) Do you have any advice for aspiring playwrights? What advice do you wish you had received when you started writing?

When I started writing for theatre, it was 1975, and Canadian theatre was just coming into its own: a very exciting time that allowed for theatre to break down the fourth wall. I came of age in the flaunted Sixties, so capitalism was anathema to me if we were going to change the world. It would have been useful through the years to realize that a more pragmatic approach was necessary if I were to support myself as a writer into old age. My way was to lower my standard of living through the decades since!

I think young artists are much more aware of the practical business demands of getting the work out there: the necessity of promotion and marketing through the present avenues that social media offers. So, aspiring playwrights… Let that spirit of the Sixties expand the possibilities of theatre. May collaboration replace competition. Throw caution to the winds and keep the doors open to let that fresh air blow through all your preconceptions of what theatre can be. But keep your business savvy.

8) What’s next for Penn Kemp?

This summer, I’ll be preparing several plays, Eros Rising and The Dream Life of Teresa Harris for the copyscript program. And hanging out in the garden.

March 2017 will be a busy month for me! Forthcoming then is a new collection of poetry, Barbaric Cultural Practice, from Quattro Books as well as a play, The Triumph of Teresa Harris. I’ll be working on this play after the Summit… trying not even to think about it till then! But it’s an exciting project. Eldon House Heritage Museum and The Palace Theatre in London have asked me to develop The Dream Life of Teresa Harris, an earlier processional play I did at Eldon House, into a two full act production for the Palace Theatre, with ten actors and the original two musicians. Teresa Harris was the youngest daughter growing up in Eldon House. She became one of the greatest explorers of the Victorian age, but her character is complex and contradictory: she remains a woman of her times. A fascinating project that once again began with a long poem.

More updates are on www.pennkemp.wordpress.com and https://www.facebook.com/Penn-Kemp-126450531030/ as well as https://twitter.com/pennkemp. See you there!

“Featured Playwright Q&A”, 2016

The Cover of “Women and Multimedia”

Photo: Daniela Sneppova for “The Dream Life of Teresa Harris”