Lives of Dead Poets by Penn Kemp, reviewed by Katerina Vaughan Fretwell
In the golden age of Toronto’s explosive poetry scene in the early 70s, Penn Kemp met many vital poets who have since passed away. Her longstanding connections to these revered poets inspired her to write the chapbook Lives of the Dead Poets. As host of A Space Reading Series (this reviewer exhibited on the Members Wall), publishing with venerable Coach House and living on Toronto Island, Penn made soon-to-be-lifelong friends: Daphne Marlatt, Phyllis Webb, P.K. Page (P.K. Irwin as artist), Robert Creeley, Allan Ginsberg, and letter-friend Diane di Prima.
Kemp’s elegies respond to the styles of the poets whom she memorializes in verse: “A lament for those who have left/ the present, the planet and possibility/ behind, left us bewildered by/ no more/ words” (“Lives of Dead Poets”). For Gwendolyn MacEwan, Penn praises: “Your fingers/ semaphore a complex code/ we cannot read.// A ring of hands/ ready to catch or pull you up” (“Not Waving But Drowning”). This reviewer also mourned a cancelled reading by MacEwan up north.
In “Gone Fishing”, Kemp elegizes Robert Creeley in the manner of the famous Kempian wordplay: “Reel back the real, back/ to the little wicker// basket carrying trout,/ Creeley.”
For Ontario poet Ellen Jaffe, Penn includes a poignant event: “Ellen dying in hospice listens in on/ Zoom as Voices Israel read her poems.// How wonderful to be read to at last.” (“Homage for Ellen S. Jaffe, Poet”).
Kemp honours bp nichol, one of the Four Horsemen, with a high compliment: “our// Rumi, born in all/ their holy,/ poetic fecundity” (“For bp nichol”), the words lovingly dancing across the page. Phyllis Webb, champion of the anti-ghazal, leaves us in a sense of Kempian whimsy: “How can we forget you? You left/ a whiff of unicorn in your wake.” (“The Poet in Charge”). Also magical, John Ashberry, the Rowan Bard, is commemorated thus: “‘Rowan is the tree of power, causing/ life and magic to flower. (“Alphabet for Ashberry”).
A lively anecdote revivifies P.K. Page: “P.K. Page was dressed to the nines … // At the stove’s first growl, she leapt up and alighted/ for the evening … closest to the door.// An oil stove had exploded on her ….// But she made that perch [couch arm] hers, crossing elegant legs,/ gallantly …” (“The Girl from Sao Paulo”).
For an elegiac taste of the other poets that Penn wistfully sets in stone, read this marvellous paean to influential Canadian [except Creeley and Ashberry] poets, with a nod to William Wordsworth’s “Ode to Intimations of Immortality”: “Only their poetry can still convey/ intimations of immortality ….// Only their poems can transcribe/ mysterium tremendum …// For me. For you.” (“One by One, They Depart, the Great Ones”).
For Kemp’s essay sourcing her inspiration, see
https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/03/penn-kemp-one-by-one-they-depart-great.html.
Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972), a “poetic El Niño”, and a “one-woman literary industry”. The League of Canadian Poets has honored her with the Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award (2025), as Spoken Word Artist of the year (2015), as a foremother of Canadian Poetry, and Life Member. Penn has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with more than thirty books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. She was London’s inaugural Poet Laureate (2010-13) and Western University’s Writer-in-Residence (2009-10). Her project was the DVD, Luminous Entrance: A Sound Opera for Climate Change Action, performed at Aeolian Hall, London. Her other Sound Operas have been performed there and at venues across Canada. She has been writer-in-residence at universities throughout India and Brazil with her work widely translated. Her “poem for peace in many voices”, for instance, is out in 136 languages. Her many collaborations with artists are up on Youtube and River Revery. Out now is POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL, an anthology for Ukraine. Penn’s sound poetry, INCREMENTALLY, is up as e-book and album. New collections in 2025 are available through Silver Bow Publishing and above/ground press. Penn is active across the web on her website; on Facebook, X, and Instagram; on her blog; on Substack; and on Soundcloud.