A Near Memoir: New Poems, Penn Kemp
Beliveau Books,
2021
With over thirty books of poetry, prose, and drama to her name—with her first book of poetry published by Coach House Press in 1972—Penn Kemp’s work is well known. She’s also explored the world of sound operas and has offered creativity workshops around Canada, often visiting schools to speak to young people about the joys of poetry. A selection of her video poems can easily be found on the internet, and some of them are poems from Kemp’s new chapbook, A Near Memoir: New Poems.
In this new publication, Kemp looks back at her life in a series of poems that span from the age of eight to the present day. Her love of art and the natural world is present in the poetry, but the theme of connection, and of community, is the thing that pulls the poems together. In a pandemic year, these poems remind the reader to cherish memories and experiences, setting out a challenge to connect with others even while the world feels—at times—socially distanced and terribly fragmented.
In poems like “Ignoring Anatomy,” “Translation,” and “When Dignitaries Visit,” the poet speaks of how art has always been a presence in her life. She recalls occasions at her parents’ house in London—back in the mid-1950s—when some of the elderly members of the Group of Seven would come to visit. Her father’s love of art is paralleled to her love of language. As a child, she writes: “I used to prime my father’s canvasses by/painting them white with gesso—a binder/mixed with chalk and gypsum.” Then, later, she waits “with paper’s white space till/words arise, images in words.” Creative process is at the heart of what she speaks of here, in her work, as she describes the parallels between visual art and poetry. Both are doorways into exploring and understanding a life’s journey and meaning. Both are ways of documenting human experience in a creative way. The creative process, she implies, is a saving grace in times of trouble, too, and one for which we should always be grateful.
The imagery and symbolism of trees is present in A Near Memoir, as well. Kemp writes of the oaks at Vimy Ridge, and, in “The Stand of Oak,” speaks to how trees “know a longer time we/can only imagine, knowing history’s record.” In “Celebrating Souwesto Trees,” the inaugural poet laureate of London, Ontario documents the destruction of trees by settlers to Southwestern Ontario, mentioning “a litany of names that belong here,” from alder, to willow, maple, and hickory, and paying tribute to her beloved Forest City. In a pandemic year, the connectivity of trees serves to remind the reader of how we are all so connected—even in times of social distancing and lockdowns, both nationally and internationally.
In A Near Memoir, Kemp documents personal life events, but reflects on universal themes like mortality, family, love, and how we are influenced by the rhythms of the natural world. She moves from the personal to the universal—as most observant and skilled poets do—and nudges her reader to think about how they might position themselves within the complexity of their own lives, but also within the scope of their wider communities. This book is, certainly, a collection of work that thoughtfully speaks to how our lives are full of stories, and how those stories connect us, individually and universally.
