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Penn Kemp
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- Canada
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Penn Kemp's Discussions
Stand for Peace on Mother's Day, with www.standingwomen.org!
2 Replies
Started this discussion. Last reply by Penn Kemp May. 2, 2008.
Viva la Vida de Frida
Replied Mar. 22, 2008
Penn Kemp's Page
Profile Information
- Hometown:
- London, Ontario, Canada
- Stage or Page or Both
- Both
- About Me:
- Sound/performance poet Penn Kemp performs in arts festivals and conferences around the world. Since 1966, Penn has taught creative writing and sounding in schools, from Kindergarten to University. Now she has happily returned to her London (and her childhood home!) after four decades' away. Her daily walk along the river is constant inspiration for poems. Born and raised near London, Penn received her Honours BA in English from U. of Western Ontario and her M.Ed in History and Philosophy from U. of Toronto. Over the years, Penn has been writer in residence in Buffalo, Labrador, Ontario and Findhorn. She also established four reading series across the country. Among her publications are more than twenty-five books of poetry and drama, ten CDs of Sound Opera and poetry as well as Canada's first CD-ROM: sample http://pennkemp.ca, http://www.mytown.ca/pendas/, http://myspace.com/pennkemp. The League of Poets proclaimed her one of the foremothers of Canadian poetry.
Since Coach House Press published her first book in 1972, Penn has been pushing text and aural boundaries, often in participatory performance. She presents her Sound Operas in happy collaboration with actors, poets and musicians. Her videopoems won for best performance (Voice Award), Vancouver Videopoem Festival and were shown throughout Toronto’s 2007 Nuit Blanche at Canadian Music Centre. http://mytown.ca/poemforpeace/ includes the video of Penn's "poem for peace in many voices" and, in audio, many of 125 translations. The Association of Canadian Studies sponsored Penn’s tours throughout India and Brazil, with the Canada Council's aid. Again thanks to the Canada Council, she has performed in Germany and Britain, most recently in Glastonbury. Through Pendas Productions, Penn edits and publishes poetry book/cd combinations, http://mytown.ca/twelfth/. Some of the CDs and interviews are archived on Gathering Voices, her radio program on http://chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. Penn’s book on writing, WHAT SPRINGS TO MIND, is on line at http://mytown.ca/whatspringstomind/. Her Flash Fiction Then There Were Foxes, read on CBC Radio One, is up on http://mytown.ca/pendas/foxes/. More workshops are up on http://www.youngpoets.ca/workshop/ and http://www.dodoland.com/ioe_w1.php.
Penn's latest workshops, given for sustainability conferences at UWO and U. Windsor, are on ecopoetics: writing and sustainability. Updates are on http://mytown.ca/pennletters/. Her eco-poems, "The Shadow" and "Polymer Smog", were set to music and performed at Toronto's Music Gallery as part of the Composer Now Face to Face series, in an evening of world premieres of new music. Penn's ironic poem on the hazards of video gaming, performed at UWO last fall during "playing the gallery, an international symposium", can be heard on http://www.chrismeloche.com/XtraTexture.htm. Several of her books are paeans to nature as well as warnings: see C'louds, Eidolons, Gathering Voice (with Gloria Mulcahy) and Travelling Light. Her cds devoted to ecopoetics, Darkness Visible and Trance Dance Form, are archived for listening on http://chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. Her latest collaboration is a theatre piece for the next London Fringe, funded by OAC.
Trance Form, book. P.K. Page writes in her preface: "Trance Form. Its title prepares you. For metamorphoses. For multiple meanings. Trance-verse? Born of trance-illumination? Its tableofcontent prepares you too. For homonyms, puns, complicated word play in the tradition of middle-eastern poetry: mattermater, moonphase, bonepoems. Logic trance-ended; matter trance-muted blown thru and out the other side of reason Read it with three eyes. Though two will do."
Workshop: Writing to and through Conscious Change
'How are the arts relevant to sustainability? Penn offers a brief survey of wonderfully sustaining literature that inspires, awes and delights. How can we too articulate our convictions in ways that move the reader to action? Examples, both local and world wide, from "ecopoetics" to "Revisiting the Thames".
Exercises from Penn's book on creativity, What Springs to Mind, give participants direct experience and practical suggestions for spurring the imagination and honing writing skills. Read more on http://www.mytown.ca/whatspringstomind/ and http://syc-cjs.org/sustainable/UWO+2007+%3A+Uncurbing+your+Enthusiasm%3A+Writing+Sustainability&bl?PHPSESSID=eac5dadeefdbbf062fd9e56e7b46dd46.
Penn Kemp, poet and publisher, Pendas Productions
525 Canterbury Road, London ON N6G 2N5
t:(519) 434-8555 e: pendas@pennkemp.ca
web: www.mytown.ca/pennkemp/, www.pennkemp.ca
- Website:
- http://myspace.com/pennkemp
- Favorite Poet or Author:
- My favourite poetry project is up on www.mytown.ca/poemforpeace. It's my little Poem for Peace in Two Voices:
:
Calm came clear
of cloud
early one morning Calm come clear
before things started of cloud
Calm came at noon Calm come
A cardinal perched clear
on black bough of cloud
in blazing sun.
Calm came at night Calm come clear
stretching as cats do, of cloud
constant stretch and change.
Forsythia brightened Calm come clear
as the house slept. of cloud
Now calm come Now calm come
in the face of clear of
brawl cloud
This "poem for peace in two voices" has now been translated into 125 languages, It is published as a poster available from
Pendas Productions.
With these posters, we participated in the
Dialogue Through Poetry &
UNESCO World Poetry Week: www.dialoguepoetry.org
and National Poetry Month.
If you would like to contribute a translation for the new posters we are planning, please send it to:
Pendas@pennkemp.ca
or
Pendas Productions
525 Canterbury Road
London ON N6G2N5 Canada
We'll send each translator posters.
We are planning a third volume of all the translations as well as a CD of those languages we can record...
In our third anthology, we hope to collect many indigenous culture languages and endangered languages . If you know of a speaker of a such a language from anywhere in the world, and can collect a translation for us, we would be very grateful.
Translation pointers:
Cardinal can be translated as red bird.
Forsythia can be translated as yellow flower or spring flower.
Or
substitute a pair of Spring harbingers from your own culture and language
Four posters are already available in
English, French, Portuguese, Spanish.
English, French, Portuguese, Sesoto.
And then English, German, Swedish, Estonian.
And English, Hebrew, Hungarian,Punjabi.
We are also preparing poster poems in
Arabic, Italian, Ojibwa, Danish, Lithuanian, Swahili, Ebe, Hindi, Urdu, Serbian, Korean, Tibetan, Chinese, Finnish and Latin!...
If you have another language to contribute,
we would be more than happy to receive it.
Peace,
Penn Kemp
Penn Kemp's Photos
Penn Kemp's Blog
Canadian arts program cancelled!
I know first-hand how involved you are in promoting the arts for peace. You'll be as concerned as we Canadian artists are that last week the federal government cancelled the $4.7-million program Prom-Art. This program administered by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade assisted artists with travel costs when promoting Canadian culture abroad. The program is scheduled to end March 31, 2009. We can't let this happen! I'm hoping artists and arts supporters across the country w… Continue
Posted on August 12, 2008 at 1:39pm —
True Costs: Walmart versus Woodland
Woods have rights too!
Peace,
Penn
London, Ontario
“True Costs: Walmart versus Woodland”
Smart!Centres (Walmart) applies
for London zoning by-law changes
so they can establish a Complex at
the corner of Meadowlilly Road South
and Commissioners East right next
to Meadowlilly Woods’ lovely stand,
that environmentally sensitive area
close to the Thames. Deep pockets
vie against deep wood. Development
vs. organic diversity. Tarmac vs. trillium
What do you love? The choice is yours,
in season… Continue
Peace,
Penn
London, Ontario
“True Costs: Walmart versus Woodland”
Smart!Centres (Walmart) applies
for London zoning by-law changes
so they can establish a Complex at
the corner of Meadowlilly Road South
and Commissioners East right next
to Meadowlilly Woods’ lovely stand,
that environmentally sensitive area
close to the Thames. Deep pockets
vie against deep wood. Development
vs. organic diversity. Tarmac vs. trillium
What do you love? The choice is yours,
in season… Continue
Posted on June 14, 2008 at 10:33pm —
The Net of Elementals
The Net of Elementals
Two things I know:
the desolation of
impermanence and its
consolation inter
dependence.
Soul is the constant sound
between desolation and
consolation, an equanimity
that solves nothing but
holds to, holds on to its own
constellation.
Old words console the soul
with kindness for their own
kind like
sky and
sigh
cry and
wry
cry and
why why why...
We cannot know until we are
dead and when we are dead we
cannot speak so the rest can hear...
events taking place ou… Continue
Two things I know:
the desolation of
impermanence and its
consolation inter
dependence.
Soul is the constant sound
between desolation and
consolation, an equanimity
that solves nothing but
holds to, holds on to its own
constellation.
Old words console the soul
with kindness for their own
kind like
sky and
sigh
cry and
wry
cry and
why why why...
We cannot know until we are
dead and when we are dead we
cannot speak so the rest can hear...
events taking place ou… Continue
Posted on February 14, 2008 at 2:30am — 4 Comments
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Peace, Sylvia
I too wish you a lovely Spring. In my country, Argentina, we're heading into glorious Autumn.
Sylvia Evelyn
Nice to hear from you, - great poem.
Hope you're having a glorious spring.
Metta.
Linda
It is great to touch base with you again my friend. wishinh you a wonderful time over the festive season. David
p/s now I'm of to peek at you web site "grin".
y/n always good to hear from you -- David
Love,
Carole
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