An Interview with Penn Kemp

---

Would you like to tell us a little bit more about your poem? For instance, how or why you wrote it, or perhaps provide some extra context? 

My father, James Kemp, was a London ON painter and I grew up with art in process all around the house. He often painted nudes. I once asked him why and he responded with a glint in his eye: “I like the flesh!” before realizing he was talking to his daughter. We said no more questions on the subject, though we talked philosophy for hours as he painted. Here’s a piece with more about him: “Searching for his Original Face.”

Why was the poetic form the best fit for this particular piece of work?

As an ekphrastic response to this particular painting, a scumble of words spread over the page best reflects the abstraction of the work. Neither poem nor painting is a literal representation. The poem catches the mood, the atmosphere, of the painting.

Do you have a collection of poetry or even a single poem that acts as a touchstone? 

Sound poetry! My latest collection, INCREMENTALLY, is up as e-book and album on https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. “Night Orchestra” from INCREMENTALLY, acts as a touchstone in that it is the kind of collaboration that I love. This video with composer Bill Gilliam is a performance piece that is participatory with the audience–so much fun.

If you didn’t write poetry, how do you think you might access the same fulfillments that poetry offers in your life? 

Other art forms tempted me for a while until I was happily thwarted.

Though I took piano lessons for years, I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) keep proper time, preferring a freedom of expression I felt in the music. The ancient nuns would correct me by slapping my knuckles with the fastest little ruler in the west, drawn from the depths of their habits.

I had a natural talent toward drawing, and so my father set me still life to sketch, a yellow lamp I still have, and The Human Machine, Bridgman’s book on the human skeleton to learn form. I was much more interested in the flowing, amorphous lines of a princess’s dress… When he critiqued my efforts, I turned to words. Perhaps I though poetry would be easier! Hmmm.

How do you revise your work? 

Over and over, until the sound clicks into a wholistic pattern. 

As a poet, what does creative success or achievement look like for you? 

If a poet I admire appreciates my work, that’s enough for me. That kind of attentive listening is rare, and I value it from my peers.

We love the artistic underdogs, the experimentalists, the lovely weirdos — who or what might you get creative joy or energy from that others might not be aware of yet? 

Over the years, I’ve loved performing my sound operas with musicians, actors and dancers at the Aeolian Hall or university settings in London ON. Jim Andrews has recently produced The Sea of Po, with enchanting multimedia pieces by celebrated poets. A rendition of my poem, “Lethologica”, is there along with a marvellous slideshow of 44 variations, and notes on the piece, (P. 62).

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new manuscript, ACROSS.  These poems celebrate several beloved dead poets with whom I have worked. The collection leads up to the last section, ”A Winder Widow”, which explores the long process of bereavement. My husband Gavin Stairs died during COVID, so a gathering in tribute to him was limited. My grieving process was thus  quite private, and came to expression in, as so often for me, poetry.

How or where or with what does a poem begin? 

A poem usually begins with a sound: a word or a phrase that sets my ears atingling.  Sometimes the weird imagery of dream entices me into poetry, but I find that the result is not as interesting as the form a sound leads me to. Often a poem begins with a play on words: I’m the dread punster incarnate.

Are there other art forms that inspire or inform your poetry? 

Paintings often inform my poetry as an act of translation into a new ekphrastic form.  Certain music inspires me to find the verbal equivalent on the page or as performance.

How do you make space for poetry in your daily routine? 

Poetry arises sometimes as I record dreams in the early morning. I have the luxury of living now on my own, so the space for poetry is all around in my daily life, in my reading of other poets, and in my garden.

What are you reading or watching or listening to lately that intrigues or inspires you? 

My Library provides me with an endless source of new poetry, so I read widely in new collections offered, in particular by Canadian poets. Partly as a mnemonic, I write mini- reviews on my group, Gathering Voices,, and on Goodreads. Right now, I’m reading Beth Goobie’s Lookin’ for joy (Exile Editions), a poet new to me. She has a way of attaching an abstraction to a particular object that intrigues me.

Listening to Jeremy Dutcher expands my hearing. He sings in Wolastoqey, the language of the Wolastoqiyik, the People of the Beautiful River, of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick

Do you belong to a writer’s group? If not, where do you find poetry community and feedback? 

My writer’s group spans the community of writers I’ve met at readings. When my first book, Bearing Down, was published by Coach House in 1972, I was invited to read at various events, including the League of Poets’ AGM and Festival in Edmonton. There my performance of sounding the labour of childbirth attracted or dismayed the audience: Those who were intrigued, like Frank Scott or P.K. Page, became friends and kept in touch. I then found community in editing an anthology of women writers, IS 14, that was published by Coach House Press in 1973. I contacted women whose work I admired, asking them to submit pieces. Those interchanges became an ongoing conversation. The only writer who refused was Denise Levertov: she did not want to be contained in an anthology for women only. Such connections continued when I ran a poetry series at Toronto’s A SPACE Gallery and invited my favourite writers to come read. At the time, the Canada Council even sponsored American poets, so we were able to host Robert Creeley, Diane di Prima, Allen Ginsberg as well as Canadians like PK Page, Daphne Marlatt, and Phyllis Webb, who became life-long friends. When I moved, I arranged similar series at the Fort Gallery in Victora, the Forest City Gallery in London ON and Flesherton Library. For decades, I have participated in National Poetry Month, crisscrossing Canada for readings every April. The Canada Council sent me abroad for reading tours in Brazil, India, Germany and England, often as writer-in-residence. My community grew even further when I initiated translations of my “Poem for Peace in Many Voices”, with readings world-wide in 136 languages.

How did you begin writing poetry? Was there a specific inspiration or reason?

Language entranced me from an early age. I loved being read to. The rhythm of nursery rhymes. The lift of my Irish grandmother’s voice as she scared me with folklore: the scream of the Banshee; the bowl of milk left out for elves. The epic 19^th century poems my other grandmother could recite by heart. When the arrival of a baby brother distracted my mother, I taught myself to read. And the power of reading became enhanced by the power of writing: marks on the page had the ability to convey story, to translate feeling that others could then understand.

In terms of poetic style or craft, is there a big question you are trying to find an answer for?

What an intriguing question! I am attempting to articulate that which has not yet been put into words; an experience of spirit beyond the rational; a synesthesia of the senses. I’m always looking for a form that mirrors my perception as an expression of the sacred in the mundane. How to express in print this multidimensional universe? For me, poetry offers glimmers, hints, pointers toward the hitherto unknown. In this it is allied to Zen koans or Rumi quotes. 

Thanks for these pertinent questions: they goaded further exploration of this ongoing need to articulate the process of creativity.

---