✨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
My poem was originally part of Chris Meloche’s hour-long 2010 production called The Space Between: A Transmorphous Journey, at Aeolian Hall, London ON.
Penn Kemp: text and performance. Chris Meloche & Richard Moule (Transmorphous Sound Ensemble): soundscapes.
Scaling the Colour Bar: Ecophonics
Transchromaticized by love, by palette of constantly shifting grey shades, we intermittently glimpse vivid streaks, flash on the wing.
Orioles everywhere this year: bright gleams searing the sky impeccably orange and black.
A red-winged blackbird creaks like a clothesline in low gear. The creek it nests by murmurs
bubbles of possibility, ignoring frothing eddies of sodden soap for the fun of funnelling spray.
Spring’s annual utopia of hope collides with dystopian detritus, shoreline picketed by plastic.
As parallel discontinuity, planes scar the blue with contrail puffs crisscrossing innocent as cumuli.
Seemingly disparate elements catch the light and loudly soar co-mingling in cerulean expanse. * Swimming in ether, Kerouac calls, “My witness is the empty sky.” Earth responds; river replies…
“The ground that gives rise to the Word and the Word that articulates the encompassing
ground are exactly parallel.”
An early version of this poem, “Colour Bar” was published in RIVER REVERY, Insomniac Press, https://riverrevery.ca/.
Michael Morris (1942-1982) created the colour bar series I loved in the early 70’s. Where he and Mr. Peanut (Vincent Trasov) lived, in Babyland on BC’s Sunshine Coast, glorious colour bars lit up and littered the gardens: fun and an eye opener for me: Art and the land in action…
Superb Canadian writing highly recommended, grouped idiosyncratically
First, by women
Pairing books by Indigenous Writers: Michelle Good, FiveLittle Indians; Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, This Accident of Being Lost, Islands of Decolonial Love and Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies.
Pairing pandemic novels: Emma Donoghue’s The Pull of the Stars; Saleema Nawaz’s Songs for the End of the World and Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu.
Pairing BC novelists: Shaena Lambert’s Petra Maria Reva; Good Citizens Need Not Fear; Caroline Adderson’s A Russian Sister and Anakana Schofield’s Bina.
Pairing books on relationship: Christy Ann Conlon’s Watermark; Annabel Lyon, Consent; Lynn Coady, Watching You Without Me; Shani Mootoo, Polar Vortex; Vivek Shraya, The Subtweet; Frances Itani, The Company We Keep.
Pairing Westerns:Gil Adamson’s Ridgerunner; Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel; Helen Humphreys’s Rabbit Foot Bill and Kate Pullinger’s Forest Green.
Pairing fiction set abroad: Aislinn Hunter’s The Certainties. Janie Chang’s The Library of Legends; Sarah Leipciger’s Coming Up For Air; Marianne Micros’s Eye; Louise Penny’s All the Devils Are Here; Lisa Robertson’s Baudelaire Fractals. Anne Simpson’s Speechless AND Farzana Doctor’s magnificent Seven.
Non-Fiction Carol Bishop-Gwyn, Art and Rivalry: The Marriage of Mary and Christopher Pratt Lorna Crozier, Through the Garden: A Love Story (with Cats) Naomi Klein, On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal Theresa Kishkan, Euclid’s Orchard & Other Essays Amanda Leduc, Disfigured Susan McCaslin & J.S. Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Lynne (E.F.) McKechnie, and Paulette M. Rothbauer, Reading still matters: what the research reveals about reading, libraries, and community Susan Vande Griek and Mark Hoffmann, Hawks Kettle, Puffins Wheel Elizabeth Waterston, Railway Ties 1888-1920 Jody Wilson-Raybould, From where I stand: rebuilding Indigenous Nations for a stronger Canada
Awards The Writers’ Trust Award goes to Gil Adamson for Ridgerunner! The Giller goes to Souvankham Thammavongsa for How to Pronounce Knife The Latner Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize goes to Armand Garnet Ruffo
Reading Canadian men Billy-Ray Belcourt, A history of my brief body Dennis Bock, The Good German Michael Christie, Greenwood: A Novel of a Family Tree in a Dying Forest Desmond Cole, The Skin We’re In David Frum, Trumpocalypse William Gibson, Agency Rawi Hage, Beirut Hellfire Society Thomas King, Indians on Vacation Thomas King, Obsidian: A DreadfulWater Mystery Kurt Palka, The hour of the fox: a novel Andrew Pyper, The residence Iain Reid, I’m Thinking of Ending Things Robin Robertson, The long take: a Noir Narrative Jesse Thistle, From the Ashes Clive Thompson, Coders Richard Wagamese, Keeper’n Me
Back to Poetry, Canadian and Beyond Madhur Anand, A new index for predicting catastrophes: poems Margaret Atwood, Dearly Adèle Barclay, Renaissance normcore Gary Barwin, For it is a PLEASURE and a SURPRISE to Breathe: new & selected Poems Heather Birrell, Float and scurry Jericho Brown, The Tradition Lucas Crawford, The high line scavenger hunt Amber Dawn, My Art is Killing Me Dom Domanski, Bite down little whisper Klara du Plessis, Ekke Nathan Dueck, A very special episode / brought to you by Nathan Dueck Chantal Gibson, How She Read Julie Hartley, Deboning a dragon Karen Houle, The Grand River Watershed: a folk ecology Patricia Keeney, Orpheus in Our World Kaie Kellough, Magnetic equator Canisia Lubrin, The Dyzgraph*st Daphne Marlatt, Intertidal: The Collected Earlier Poems, 1968 – 2008 Jane Munro, Glass Float Harold Rhenisch, The Spoken World Robin Richardson, Knife throwing through self-hypnosis: poems Anne Simpson, Strange attractor: poems John Elizabeth Stintzi, Junebat Moez Surani, Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real?
Anthologies Best Canadian poetry 2019 Measures of astonishment: poets on poetry / presented by the League of Canadian Poets Caroline Adderson, editor. The Journey prize stories: the best of Canada’s new writers Nyla Matuk, editor. Resisting Canada: an anthology of poetry Adam Sol, How a poem moves: a field guide for readers of poetry
Beloved Books on Spiritual Ecology Tim Dee, Landfill: Notes on Gull Watching and Trash Picking in the Anthropocene Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass Diana Beresford-Kroeger, To Speak for the Trees: My Life’s Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest Robert Macfarlane, Underland Richard Powers, The Overstory Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life
Deepest, Longest and most Transformative Read of 2020 Peter Kingsley, Reality, Catafalque Press, 2020 (and Peter Kingsley, In the Dark Places of Wisdom)
International Reads John Banville, Snow Neil Gaiman, American Gods: The moment of the storm. 3 Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings Lily King, Writers and Lovers Natsuo Kirino, The goddess chronicle E. J Koh, The magical language of others: A memoir Raven Leilani, Luster Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights William Maxwell, So long, see you tomorrow Ian McEwan, Machines like me: and people like you Ian McEwan, Cockroach Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter, Hamilton: the revolution David Mitchell, Utopia Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts Celeste Ng, Little Fires Everywhere Naomi Shihab Nye, Cast away: poems for our time Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet and Judith Tommy Pico, Feed Samantha Power, The Education of an Idealist Omid Safi, Radical love: teachings from the Islamic mystical tradition Jake Skeets, Eyes bottle dark with a mouthful of flowers / poems by Jake Skeets Mirabai Starr, Wild mercy: living the fierce and tender wisdom of the women mystics Natasha Trethewey, Memorial Drive Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough Ruth Ware, The Turn of the Key Jennifer Weiner, Big Summer Niall Williams, This is Happiness Bob Woodward, Rage
About to read (sometime, soon-ish) Madhur Anand, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart Marianne Apostolides, I can’t get you out of my mind: a novel Nina Berkhout, Why Birds Sing Carol Bruneau, Brighten the Corner Where You Are: A Novel Inspired by the Life of Maud Lewis Cathy Marie Buchanan, Daughter of Black Lake Catherine Bush, Blaze Island Louise Carson, The Cat Possessed Dede Crane, Madder Woman Lorna Crozier, The House the Spirit Builds Francesca Ekwuyasi, Butter Honey Pig Bread Heather Haley, Skookum Raven Catherine Hernandez, Crosshairs Natalie Jenner, The Jane Austen Society Shari Lapena, The End of Her Jessica J. Lee, Two trees make a forest: travels among Taiwan’s mountains & coasts in search of my family’s past Tanis MacDonald, Mobile Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Mexican Gothic Noor Naga, Washes, Prays C.L. Polk, The Midnight Bargain Damian Rogers, An Alphabet for Joanna: A Portrait of My Mother in 26 Fragments Johanna Skibsrud, Island Susan Swan, The Dead Celebrities Club Emily Urquhart, The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father, and Me Natalie Zina Walschots, Hench: a novel
AND… Jordan Abel, Nishga André Alexis, The Night Piece: Collected Short Fiction Bill Arnott, Gone Viking John Barton, Lost Family David Bergen, Here the Dark Wade Davis, Magdalena: river of dreams Cory Doctorow, Radicalized Cory Doctorow, Attack Surface Gary Geddes, Out of the ordinary: politics, poetry and narrative Steven Heighton, Reaching Mithymna: among the volunteers and refugees on Lesvos Kaie Kellough, Dominoes at the Crossroads David A. Robertson, Black Water Mark Sampson, All the Animals on Earth J.R. (Tim) Struthers (Editor), Alice Munro Everlasting: Essays on Her Works II Mark Truscott, Branches Ian Williams, Reproduction
Most of these books have come to me through London Public Library, now celebrating 125 years! Thank you! Others came from Indie bookstores and friends. None from Amazon.
“For Penn Kemp, poetry is magic made manifest. While her subjects are varied, and her interests and approaches have evolved over the years, Kemp has always understood the power of spoken word to evoke emotion, shift consciousness, and shape the world. Drawing on a syncretic blend of spiritual philosophy informed by Alchemy, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other wisdom traditions, Kemp’s work is imminent and transcendent, embodied and cerebral. The words on the page produce certain effects, while the voices in the air produce others altogether.”
New #SpokenWebPod episode coming next Monday, Dec 7. Come to our Listening Party to experience “Sounds of Trance Formation: An Interview with Penn Kemp.”
Monday, December 7, 2020 at 5 PM EST – 7 PM EST Hosted by SpokenWeb
Join us to listen and discuss #SpokenWebPod episode Sounds of Trance Formation: An Interview with Penn Kemp
We will gather virtually to listen together at 5pm ET and share our reactions in a Twitter conversation. This will be followed by a 6pm ET Q&A with Episode Producer Nick Beauchesne and featured guest Penn Kemp. You are invited to join for the entire event or at 6pm ET for just the Q&A.
Listening Party Zoom Link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/83778515727…Meeting ID: 837 7851 5727 Password: resonate One tap mobile +16473744685,,83778515727#,,,,0#,,71824394# Canada
Join the Twitter Conversation: You are invited to follow @SpokenWebCanada and #SpokenWebPod on Twitter and join the conversation during the event as we listen together. Tweet at us with #SpokenWebPod and share your listening experience: what moments jump out to you? what sounds resonate with your experience?
“For Penn Kemp, poetry is magic made manifest. While her subjects are varied, and her interests and approaches have evolved over the years, Kemp has always understood the power of spoken word to evoke emotion, shift consciousness, and shape the world. Drawing on a syncretic blend of spiritual philosophy informed by Alchemy, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other wisdom traditions, Kemp’s work is imminent and transcendent, embodied and cerebral. The words on the page produce certain effects, while the voices in the air produce others altogether.” The Sounds of Trance Formation: An Interview with Penn Kemp” Nick Beauchesne, Spoken Web Canada. To be podcast in December 2020.
“Refining the Alchemical Ear: Adept Listening Practices and the Poetry of George Bowering, Margaret Atwood, and Penn Kemp” Nick Beauchesne, https://spokenweb.ca/events/virtual-listening-practice-guided-by-nick-beauchesne/ This workshop is a brief foray toward an “adept” listening practice; that is, to listen to poetry from the perspective of an aspiring adept, a seeker of spiritual and poetic truths. What can we learn about the seeker’s path, and about poetry, from the Masters? What is the relationship between magic, word, and sound? How does the experience change when encountering these verses visually vs. orally? Analog vs. digital? This week, Nick Beauchesne curates three poems selected from the University of Alberta’s SpokenWeb collection. These poems have been digitized from reel-to-reel recordings of poetry readings captured at the U of A in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, and delivered by some heavy-hitters of Canadian literature. These readings touch on themes and practices derived from Alchemy, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Buddhism, Hinduism, and New Age philosophy. George Bowering, Margaret Atwood, and Penn Kemp (formerly Penny Chalmers) are the magical Masters from whom we will learn some new “tricks” of the poetic (and magical) trade. Research project with an interest in the study, preservation and creative use of literary and humanities-oriented audio recordings.”
Both books and isolated poems, with some quotes, as they happen. I include the publishers as well, to thank them for their insistence on publishing poetry~! And the Library for fulfilling my requests for titles!
*
Margaret Atwood’s “Six Poems”, Cutting edge: new stories of mystery and crime by women writers, edited by Joyce Carol Oates
Gary Barwin, For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems (Wolsak & Wynn)
Jay Bernard, Surge (Penguin Random House)
Frank Bidart, Half-light: collected poems 1965-2016 (Farrar Straus Giroux)
Heather Cadsby, Standing in the flock of connections (Brick Books)
Tina Chang, Hybrida: poems (Norton) Leonard Cohen, The Flame
Marlene Cookshaw, Mowing (Brick Books)
Lorna Crozier, What the soul doesn’t want: poems (Freehand Books)
Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees (Picador)
Katerina Vaughan Fretwell, We Are Malala (Inanna Publications)
Matthew Gwathmey, Our latest in folktales (Brick Books)
Joy Harjo, An American sunrise: poems
Stevie Howell, I left nothing inside on purpose: poems (M & S) Maureen Hynes, Sotto Voce (Brick Books)
Monika Hope Lee, If water breathes (Resource Publications))
Michael Lista, Bloom: poems (House of Anansi)
Erin Moure, The Elements (House of Anansi)
Harold Rhenisch, The Spoken World (Hagios)
Jane Urquhart; photographs by Jennifer Dickson, Some other garden:The little flowers of Madame de Montespan and I am walking in the garden of his imaginary palace (M & S)
David White, Local Haunts (Pedlar Press)
Howard White, A mysterious humming noise / new poems by Howard White (Anvil Press)
Sheri-D. Wilson, A Love Letter to Emily C. (Frontenac House)
*
from Margaret Atwood’s “Spider Signatures” Six Poems in Cutting edge: new stories of mystery and crime by women writers, edited by Joyce Carol Oates
“and while you sleep
I hover, the first grandmother.
I trap your nightmares in my net,
eat the seeds of your fears for you,
suck out their ink
and scribble on your windowsill
these tiny glosses on Is, Is, Is,
white lullabies.”
*
Gary Barwin, For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe: New and Selected Poems
About to read For It Is a Pleasure and a Surprise to Breathe! I know it will be a Pleasure and a Surprise:)!!
*
Jay Bernard, Surge
The ‘New Cross Massacre’, the fire, a racist attack?
*
Heather Cadsby, Standing in the flock of connections
I spend all
this energy fending off cures when I could be enjoying boring times;
guarding my secrets and incessant thoughts. I tell you, my supply is
dwindling.”
*
Tina Chang, Hybrida: poems
A terrifying, brilliant book confronting the poet’s terror
“Somewhere, glass breaks
and the one who shatters it
wears a mask of God’s many faces.
*
Leonard Cohen, The Flame. Recommending the audiobook, read by Atwood, Seth Rogen, etc, a company of fine readers. Listen again and again till the rhymes chime. They already resonate.
Great to hear the exchange between Leonard and Peter Dale Scott, Frank’s son and Cohen’s mentor at McGill: “You want it darker?”
I published a book of poems called Travelling Light with Soft Press (1976), decades before Cohen’s. But his poem here is the more inspiriting, I mean inspiring. Surprised? I think notJ. And titles are open game.
*
Lorna Crozier, What the soul doesn’t want: poems
Up to snuff. Deeply engaged and engaging.
*
Carol Ann Duffy, The Bees
My fave: the sweetest of all these books.
“alchemical, nectar-slurred, pollen-furred,
the world’s mantra us, our blurry sound
along the thousand scented miles to the hive…
the hive, alive, us—how we behave.
*
Katerina Vaughan Fretwell, We Are Malala (Inanna Publications)
Some of Fretwell’s phrases will ring in your head long after you have put the book down. My favourite lines in the book link spirit and the natural world:
Once all women could talk to trees.
*
I still chant to forests, seeing chi—
silvery energy—pulsing around twig,
leaf, branch, bole. The whole.
The last lines of this book are a rallying call:
United we thrive, divided we die.
All souls. All sentience.
Sentenced to prescience, We Are Malala.
*
Stevie Howell’s text, I left nothing inside on purpose: poems
How I love Stevie Howell’s text, I left nothing inside on purpose: poems. Like this:
“Anonymous,
the one who sands the edges of sorrow.”
Magic!
*
Maureen Hynes, Sotto Voce
“We’re always
looking backwards in galleries and books
to find women like ourselves.”
Maureen Hynes, “Keep It Dark”
*
Monika Hope Lee, If water breathes
We’ve both made poetry of experiences like the Kalachakra, like Jaipur!
“Talking to the Unknown”
Tomorrow a gain or loss or truce
will alter the past
and we will reach for signs, particulars
a keyhole to the future’s largesse”
Reading at Novel Idea, Kingston. Photo by Andrew Simms.
Since our first production of Penn Kemp’s play in 1977, Pendas Productions has been developing multimedia works, often in collaboration with other artists and art forms. Our micro publishing company in London ON has produced plays, CDs, DVDs of sound opera, as well as hand-made art books of poetry, art and drama, often in combination with CDs. The company started in 1977 with the production and publication of Kemp’s first play, The Epic of Toad and Heron (Black Moss Press), a drama written to save Toronto Island homes. Pendas continued with poetry/cd combination books, featuring more than twenty authors and producing anthologies in several languages.
Pendas published 136 translations of Penn’s “poem for peace” in two volumes, with CDs. Our literary magazine, Twelfth Key, begun through London publisher Applegarth Follies, continued from 1976 in twenty issues, often of Penn’s workshops and students’ writing. Twelfth Key culminated in 2005 with an anthology and CD of Pendas Poets.
For the last decade, Pendas Productions has collaborated with Saby Siren Productions in producing several videopoems for Penn Kemp’s poetry as well as documentation of numerous live performances of her larger works. Our collaborations have been generously supported by the London Arts Council.
PennandDenn Collection #1, 2016: Five Eerie Pieces
“On the Other Hand of Time”
“From Dream Sequins”
“Heart P’Arts”
“Between Between”
“For Me It Was Foxes”
“A marvelous performance, blending music and words to bring an amazing woman to life. Can’t wait to see the pla based on this story at the Procunier Hall, at the Palace Theater. We have our tickets already. They are going fast!” Susan Cassan
“I almost checked my passport on returning home for extra stamps (such was the journey we were on today)” John Hassan
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!
“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.
Penn Kemp is an inspiring workshop presenter, poet, playwright, performer, activist and London’s inaugural poet laureate. After reading from some of her plays, Penn will lead us in exploring and developing characters through sound and image. In allowing our Muses to speak through us, we’ll be surprised at the unfolding process of new writing. Free. Drop in.
Photo: Deb Hill
Reading sponsored by the Guild of Canadian Playwrights.
Since our first production of Penn Kemp’s play in 1977, Pendas Productions has been developing multimedia works, often in collaboration with other artists and art forms. Our micro publishing company in London ON has produced plays, CDs, DVDs of sound opera, as well as hand-made art books of poetry, art and drama, often in combination with CDs. The company started in 1977 with the production and publication of Kemp’s first play, The Epic of Toad and Heron (Black Moss Press), a drama written to save Toronto Island homes. Pendas continued with poetry/cd combination books, featuring more than twenty authors and producing anthologies in several languages.
Penn Kemp 