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UpdatesCelebrating Poetry 2024 Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972). Penn has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty+ books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. Penn has performed in arts festivals around the world, giving readings and workshops in various writer-in-residencies from the Yukon to Labrador and throughout India and Brazil, Britain and Germany. Her work has been translated often: “poem for peace in many voices”, for instance, is out in 136 languages. Recent publications are POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL: an anthology for Ukraine, and INTENT ON FLOWERING, Rose Garden Press. Penn’s new collection, INCREMENTALLY, is up as e-book and album on https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. Delighting in multimedia, Penn is active across the web. See https://seaofpo.vispo.com?p=pk for animation. Updates are on www.pennkemp.weebly.com, www.pennkemp.wordpress.com and www.pennkemp.substack.com. Recent In-person Poetry Readings: ✨ October 10, 2024. 3:30-4:30 Session 3: Panel 8: Panel Chair jill battson—Chet Singh & Caylie Staples “Age of Rage” + Penn Kemp, “Luminous Entrance”+ Gary Barwin. “New Sonic Poetries,” OCADU Waterfront Campus, 130 Queen’s Quay E, Level 4R, Toronto. A conference event held at both Brock University (St. Catharines) and OCAD U. Contact: Gregory Betts <[email protected]>. I performed “Luminous Entrance". My reading was sponsored by Playwrights Guild of Canada. ✨ October 2O, 2024, 3-5pm. "Art of Improv", with Bill Gilliam, Penn Kemp, and Eugene Martynec (electroacoustics). The Kensington Sound Studio in Kensington Market, 170 Baldwin St, Toronto, ON M5T 1L8. An afternoon of voice and improv., the theme Art of Improv. My reading was sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts. ✨ October 21, 2024, 7pm. Art Bar Reading Series, With Robert Priest and Romeo Desjardins. My reading was sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts. ✨Forthcoming Publications ✨November, 2024. 5 poems from Across, my new manuscript. The Capilano Review,ti-TCR: On Collective Care https://thecapilanoreview.com/. “Five Poems”, The Capilano Review, ti-TCR 20: On Collective Care. Fall 2024, p. 47-53. “Solastalgia”, “As News Invades”, “What consoles, what is solace?”, “One by One, They Depart, the Great Ones”, “Already the Dreadful”. https://thecapilanoreview.com/project/ti-tcr-20/. Editor, Emma Jeffrey. ✨“Playing for Keeps and Keep on Playing”, Issue 51 of Sage-ing: The Journal of Creative Aging, https://www.sageing.ca, Winter 2024 "When I Go...", "Through the Glass Darkly", "Solastalgia", "Obsequies", "How Things Are Here", and "A Widow's Season" in a digital scan for the Alberta Public Library e-magazine Collection, The Prairie Journal of Canadian Literature #83 ✨Recent Publications ✨Review. Kevin Spenst, “Chuffed about Chapbooks”, SubTerrain #98, https://subterrain.ca/ writes. "Intent on Flowering (Rose Garden Press, 2024) contains three interwoven sequences of poems by Penn Kemp, Jessica Lee McMillan, and @Katiey. Kemp's contribution frames the chapbook with a long poem divided into parts with MacMillanand Jersky's individual poems interspersed in ways to play off the themes of growth, poetic conversation (Dante, Blake, Yeats, and Auden are namechecked), and the interconnectedness of things. All the poets' work reads beautifully together, especially with Kemp's minimal approach of short lines as liturgical chants playing off powerfully with the more varied lexicon of MacMillan's coming-of-age narratives. "Rose, intent on / flowering" is a line from one of Kemp's poems, found in the middle of the collection, as if we were in the very centre of a rose with "the dance of bees," all of us feeding off a paradise of pollen. Immediately following the titular phrase, we read: “intense in all / directions." This is well positioned in the middle of the chapbook as we think of the rings of a rose reverberating out like a red-hued puddle. These "directions" also speak to MacMillan's voice which draws from multiple lexicons: psychology, music theory, and the language of the playground (among other discourses). MacMillan's poems are intensely focused on youth's desire for growth and an acceptance of what delays that dream: "Falling is welcome logic / for a moment of flight." Through all the linguistic fireworks of MacMillan's poems, there's also the intent to "intuit a grander scheme." Within the framework of the chapbook, Jeresky poems serve as pilgrimages towards a "forest home" where we might embody the insight gleaned from Kemp and MacMillan. The great act of imagination within intent on flowering is the working together of three poetic hearts." ✨November, 2024. “Five Poems”, The Capilano Review, ti-TCR 20: On Collective Care. Fall 2024, p. 47-53. “Solastalgia”, “As News Invades”, “What consoles, what is solace?”, “One by One, They Depart, the Great Ones”, “Already the Dreadful”. https://thecapilanoreview.com/project/ti-tcr-20/. Editor, Emma Jeffrey. ✨October, 2024. Interview and poems, Version 9 Magazine, Issue 7, https://version9magazine.com/. Editor Andrew Cyril Macdonald. “Our upcoming Issue features 3 poems and an interview with Penn Kemp, towering icon of modern Canadian poetry." (Towering, eh? Hope I don't keel over:)!) "Lives of the Poets", chapbook, above/ground press, https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com. "For bp nichol" July, 2024. “The Conference of the Birds” is a collaborative poem from BLACK KEYS OF KIEV with Harold Rhenisch. Canadian Literature #256, https://canlit.ca/article/the-conference-of-the-birds/, https://canlit.ca/new-issue-256-general/. ✨July, 2024. Morgiana’s Podcast #2: Penn Kemp Hem Press has just published an interview on sound poetry with me, starting with a sound poem: take a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZpznmNu47o. The interview is also up on Morgiana’s Podcast #2: Penn Kemp, on Hem Press, https://substack.com/home/post/p-146584193. Thanks to the insightful and enciting Richard Capener! Thanks to Karl E. Jirgens for this insightful review of INCREMENTALLY and to rob mclennan for including it on Periodicity! Oh and Richard Capener of Hem Press for publishing text and album! https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2024/06/karl-jirgens-incrementally-sounding-by.html ✨July, 2024. "Burnt Umber", poem + interview, Desire issue. Pinhole Poetry, Editor Erin Bedford. "Burnt Umber" is an ekphrastic poem written in response to one of my father's paintings. It's up on now in the desirable Desire issue of Pinhole Poetry on https://pinholepoetry.ca/6445-2/, wtih an interview with Erin Bedford and me: https://pinholepoetry.ca/an-interview-with-penn-kemp ✨ “A Widow's Season” and “Weather Metonymy”, Synaeresis: arts + poetry #24, pp 6-8. Andreas Gripp, editor. https://beliveaubooks.wixsite.com/home/magazines. https://2e8a8d6d-e97c-4235-92c8-7aa31bae0d77.filesusr.com/ugd/830f0d_09b6cca015ed4aa1b9e93fb370b95450.pdf ✨ “Lethologica”, The Vernacular Journal, Spring 2024, https://vernacularjournal.com/Lethologica ✨“Gone Fishing”, “Of Course”, “Recall”, “For I am a sensitive man & Enjoy My Jokes" and “Wednesday’s Man” are up on The Typescript, https://thetypescript.com/drink-poems-by-penn-kemp/. May, 2024 ✨"A Painter in Search of His Original Face", https://centred.ca/a-painter-in-search-of-his-original-face ✨My poem “Lethologica” is on https://seaofpo.vispo.com?p=pk. Jim Andrews's marvellous slideshow of 44 variations on the poem on https://vispo.com/seaofpo/public/slidvids/Penn_Kemp. See https://vispo.com/writings/essays/Sea_of_Po2.pdf, P. 62. ✨“After the Cull” and “Devotion”. Synaeresis #23, pp. 14-15. April 2024, https://beliveaubooks.wixsite.com/home/magazines, https://2e8a8d6d-e97c-4235-92c8-7aa31bae0d77.filesusr.com/ugd/830f0d_fd5cfc8dc493496eb85acb418f658fe4.pdf ✨Spring, 2024: “Searching For His Original Face”, Sage-ing With Creative Spirit, Grace and Gratitude, #48, P. 24, https://www.sageing.ca/ https://www.sage-ing.com/Sage-ing48.pdf Interview, CV2 with Penn Kemp by Sophie Guillas: https://contemporaryverse2.ca/interviews/an-interview-with-penn-kemp/ ✨ March 1, 2024: "The Lords and Ladies of the Fermi Bubbles", a collaborative poem with Harold Rhenisch in Masque & Spectacle.: An arts & literary journal, https://masqueandspectaclejournal.wordpress.com/ ✨ "The Big Ask”, the Transitions issue, Uproar, https://lawrencehouse.ca/the-big-ask/ For my beloved granddaughter, Ula Podesta Chalmers: https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/2023/12/13/for-ula-two-poems/ ✨"Losing the Vernacular", with image by Jim Kemp. The Vernacular Journal, https://vernacularjournal.com/On-Losing-the-Vernacular, Winter 2024 ✨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. 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: [email protected], Michelle Arnett and Michele Vanderwal @rosegarden_press. To order: https://rosegardenpress.ca/intent-on-flowering/ @rosegarden_press. Check out: Catherine Owen, Episode 5, “Performing your Poetry”, https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/catherine960/episodes/Episode-5-Performing-your-Poetry-e2f9etr She draws from my piece, “Performing Your Work”, https://poets.ca/performing-your-work/. Kevin Spenst, “Chuffed About Chapbooks” on my project, “Poem for Peace in Many Voices”. SubTerrain issue #95, 2024. ✨2025 Forthcoming Readings and Workshops: Sounds of the Forest: Music and Poetry Reading with Luc Tenzen 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. Free but you need to register here: https://www.thamestalbotlandtrust.ca/p2n2024_soundsoftheforest, https://www.thamestalbotlandtrust.ca/passport_to_nature. Contact: Darby Alderson, Administration and Engagement Coordinator, <[email protected]>, (519) 858-3442 Thames Talbot Land Trust P.O. Box 25054 London, ON N6C 6A8www.thamestalbotlandtrust.ca ✨Recent Readings and Workshops: ✨October 4, 2024, 11:15-4:15. 2 Grade Six Classes, 80 minutes each. "What Springs to Mind", poetry reading and workshop. Pearson School for the Arts, sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets. July 21, 1-4 p.m. Poetry Workshop for London Writers Society, https://londonwriterssociety.ca/ ✨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 but you need to register here: https://www.thamestalbotlandtrust.ca/p2n2024_soundsoftheforest June 10, 10am-2pm. A day of poetry at Pearson School for the Arts, London ON. My reading is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts. 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. My reading is sponsored by the League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts. April 28, 3-5pm. Poetry Reading among the Alpacas by Penn Kemp with cellist Luc Julian. 2211 Egremont Drive, RR5 Strathroy ON, N7G 3H6. Contact: Thandi, [email protected]. Celebrating National Poetry Month on the theme of Weather. https://www.timbuktufarm.com/event-details/poetry-readings-alpacas February 25, 12:30-1:30pm EST. Penn Kemp and Katie Jeresky read from INTENT ON FLOWERING with cellist Luc Julian in Heeman’s Greenhouse, 20422 Nissouri Road, Thorndale ON 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/ And from 2023: Thanks to @wordsalouddfest for a delightful, delicious, resounding October weekend in Owen Sound! If you enjoy participatory sound poetry, join us at the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa_kl_I1nMs&list=PLiywD8uW8V27EClMDI6BEmr1EwiajhqM0&index=6&t=315s December 15, 2023. "For an Elder, Turning, Returning” .Norma West Linder Tribute issue. https://lawrencehouse.ca/for-an-elder-turning-returning/ December 4, 2023. “3 favorite reads in 2023”, https://shepherd.com/bboy/2023/f/penn-kemp My choices: Emma Donoghue, Susan McCaslin and Harold Rhenisch. My 4th: Alicia Elliot's new AND THEN SHE FELL. "Heraclitus Ongoing", "Invocation Beyond Building Bridges", Leviathan Meets Behemoth", Wordsfest Zine 2022, p. 64-66. https://wordsfest.ca/assets/images/zines/Bridging-Divides-Wordsfest-2022-Zine.pdf Kevin Spenst’s Chapbooks Review of “Poem for Peace in Many Voices” book and CD, subTerain magazine, WINTER, #96. https://subterrain.ca/ Want a sense of the workshops I offer? Here you go: https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/local-news/sound-poet-shares-secret-finding-her-muse. You can hear more of my techniques on "The Craft of Writing": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn2HRTLuQOA Doesn't this great review make you want to read/hear Incrementally?https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2023/10/laura-kerr-incrementally-by-penn-kemp.html The text, Incrementally (88 pages and free!) is now up on https://www.hempressbooks.com/shop/p/incrementally-by-penn-kemp ! Album is on https://angrystarlings.bandcamp.com/ https://www.hempressbooks.com/angrystarlings https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp 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 1.232 3“from Night Orchestra”, “Declination”, “Bees Needs”, Interpoem: A Visual Anthology. Editor, Laura Kerr, https://sedserio.com/about 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, [email protected], rosegardenpress.ca 2 POEMS for Ula Podesta Chalmers, Celebration of Life. Sunday, December 17. AIA, Toronto Island. https://pennkemp.wordpress.com/2023/12/13/for-ula-two-poems/ CAROLS & POEMS! Sunday, December 10 to a full house. Grosvenor Lodge, 1017 Western Rd, London ON N6G 1G5. Heritage London Foundation presents the 4th concert of the 2023 Community Music Series, featuring 'Carols & Poems' with local poet Penn Kemp, cellist Lucas Tensen and singers from the Waldorf Faculty & Community. December 6, 2023, 6:30-8pm. Black Mallard Reading Series features Madeline Bassnett and Jennifer Wenn. Penn reads "Invocation" for the 14 women killed in the Montreal Massacre. Open mic, Mykonos Restaurant, 572 Adelaide St. N., London ON 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 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: [email protected] November 4, 2023. Reading from Joey and his Friend Water and Barbaric Cultural Practice for the Power Up Climate Solutions Rally, Council of Canadians, Victoria Park, London ON, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsHGUz_z0H8&list=PLGO4M_omdRNuZHjHSitWmk8vPQRuYrHws&index=6 October 31st to 5th November.“Wishing Well” from www.riverrevery.ca. “Buenos deseos” Spanish translation by Camilo Bosso. Mary McDonald’s videopoem “Wishing Well” on www.riverrevery.ca will be shown in "CLIMATE CHANGE AND SUBJECTIVITY": Debate con Mary McDonald, Ian Gibbins y Sarah Tremlet. MALDITO FESTIVAL de Videopoesía /MALDITO FESTIVAL, Albacete, Spain. https://malditofestival.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/MALDITO-FESTIVAL-Programa-VII-EDICION-2023.pdf. What a glorious weekend of poetry at www.wordsaloud.ca, thanks to Richard-Yves Sitoski and his grand team, and the POETS! This reporter stuck around for my 2 hour workshop on sound poetry... and participated:) https://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/news/local-news/sound-poet-shares-secret-finding-her-muse. My reading on October 22, with participatory sound poem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa_kl_I1nMs&list=PLiywD8uW8V27EClMDI6BEmr1EwiajhqM0&index=6&t=291s Great Lakes Odyssey Radio Hour. “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.” The show is up now, 44.42, 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 aired it. October 21, 10 pm, WCMU-NPR Central/North Michigan aired it. The reach is 100,000 listeners! Re-Creative: Penn Kemp on Poets in Collaboration: https://re-creative.podbean.com/e/re-creative-penn-kemp-on-fellow-poets-harold-rhenish-and-sharon-thesen/. Re-Creative with Penn Kemp on collaboration and tipped canoes. A podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it. Hosts Joe Mahoney and Mark A. Rayner.October 11, Re-Creative with Penn Kemp on collaboration and tipped canoes. A podcast ab |
May poetry see us through!
Such deep gratitude for the ongoing support and love we have experienced over the last years of turmoil. In the midst of challenges and change, I feel warmly embraced. Much love returned to the community of family, friends and all those generous people whom I haven’t yet met. Thank you for your kindness on so many levels! Look how The London Free Press supports poetry! https://lfpress.com/entertainment/local-arts/poets-are-talking-tough-and-their-words-make-a-difference https://lfpress.com/entertainment/local-arts/loreena-mckennitt-headlining-sold-out-london-benefits-for-ukraine. From words to comfort to action, March 23, 2022. https://www.thelondoner.ca/entertainment/local-arts/london-poet-driving-force-behind-new-anthology-of-poems-about-war-in-ukraine/ https://lfpress.com/entertainment/local-arts/belanger-our-poet-laureates-financial-plight-and-a-call-to-help As every writer, every artist knows, this is a time of diminishing monetary returns....so please buy our work! My books are available from [email protected] or from https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=Penn+Kemp&ref=nb_sb_noss. I'd rather you buy from me than Amazon! See https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/126379.Books_by_Penn_Kemp. Events Eco-Poetry: Using Arts to Celebrate the Earth London Public Library's 2022 Environmentalist in Residence Jennifer Chesnut is in conversation with local poet Penn Kemp on how poetry is a way to go beyond our normal perceptions and connect to the wonder of natural spaces that are sacred and magical, and to bring our inner lives and what we feel and value into the public realm. They share favourite poems that celebrate the Earth and nature. Penn's poems from 32.45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLw0HMtzI2k&list=PLhMxXgVpLqCCOCe__qsXCuASbUEKtTV98&index=4 Also on https://riverrevery.ca/news/ |
