Overview

Perceptions from early childhood for Penn Kemp were best expressed in poetry as the senses are so acute then and the imagery intense. A child's perspective fascinate the poet as it is still original, unencumbered by expectation. Penn's life began during World War Two and carried on throughout the staid Fifties into those (in)famous Sixties. The London Ontario artistic scene when Penn grew up was an exciting foment of new ideas. Her father, an abstract painter, was very involved in the arts scene so the arts were her milieu. Adjusting to social mores at school was something else. Her poems present that trajectory: articulating the momentous shifts in consciousness that all those decades offered. Raising kids in the Seventies, then skipping on to her into her Seventies, while her grandchildren grow she stands back now to ponder the cycles, patterns of change: what remains and what goes. Penn Kemp, Life Member, League of Canadian Poets

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9781774033517

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Reviews

How lovely to see this talented and prolific poet performing at the top of her game at age 80! These are golden poems, brief glimpses of a long life in love and sorrow and art, threaded together with courage and bravado and the kind of gentle Celtic-inspired wisdom we have come to expect in Penn Kemp's work. There are echoes of early Margaret Atwood and late Dorothy Livesay, but transmuted into wide poetic gestures of unusual generosity, empathy, simplicity, community, and kindness. Di Brandt, author of 'The Sweetest Dance on Earth: New and Selected Poems' _________________________________________In these strikingly rich poems, Penn Kemp filters her life story as well as that of her family through the lens of ordinary movements. Rich in word play, onomatopoeia and metaphor, these poems describe the universal experience of coming of age, finding one's forte, grieving the loss of loved ones and finely balancing family dynamics. Kemp's uncanny juxtapositions reveal her particular genius and wry wit: Katerina Fretwell, author of 'Holy in My Nature' and 'Familiar and Forgiveness'

Author Information

Poet and playwright Penn Kemp has participated in Canadian cultural life for sixty years- writing, editing, and publishing poetry, fiction, and plays. She shares the richness of her experience through a unique use of word, sound, imagery and symbolism. Her work explores environmental and feminist concerns, though she is best known as a sound poet. Delighting in multimedia, Penn is active across the web.

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