Thursday, October 3, 2024

Penn Kemp : Three poems

 

 

 

 

For bp nichol

          September 25, 1944 - September 30, 1988

Shaking his mane,
holding his pain, he

    roars with yellow
toothed laughter so

           large it spills over
into song; birds

                     catch the drift and
      carry on all measure

beyond any known
            syntax into currents

contemporary all
                               ways, our

          Rumi, born in all
their holy,

          poetic fecundity.

*

A loss as alive now as
then. He was

about to read in my poetry series
at Flesherton Library just after
his operation that September.

He called me to postpone, but

I’m glad I told him then we
all loved him.

          Because we do. Because

born in 1944 and died five days
before his forty-fourth birthday
in a year we thought would be lucky,

                                we do.



for Jack Spicer

          “we are too tired to live like lions”

Read words thickly

                                and lie
          with the lion
            on the lam

of a dilettante’s
        dilemma. Or

read Rimbaud instead and lie 
           with the lion on the lam to lie on it,

                     no lie! — loose
   occupational hazard—

          pelt, spelt

                     and all played out.

                     The rest is
                               easy
          even
           —especially—

                    without
pride

          (unless we
       rest

            lying in

wait all
     winter long)

                        to prey.

 

Joe for Joe, Encore

Joe Blades, reaped too
soon, after long labour in

the field, the widest field
cross the Can Lit continent.

His voice on the radio, no
Broken Jaw. His distress,

the usual Canadian complaint.
“Nobody knows the work.”

But we do, Joe. We’re still
listening.

And Muttsy, y’old renegade,
muttering Rosenblatt, Rose

Leaf from Qualicum Beach,
his wild menagerie no more.

Voices echo voices still heard
on the sharp blade wind whets

as their names imply.
Joseph means to add, increase—

just how you both gave to us,
to the word hoard, the common

poetry store. Yet what I recall
most tenderly is your kind selves

deprecating, wry and aware,
alert to the next moment

garnered in grins that, here,
grin once more.

 

 

 

 

Poet/playwright Penn Kemp was London's inaugural Poet Laureate (2010-13) and Western University’s Writer-in-Residence (2009-10). Chosen as a foremother of Canadian poetry and Spoken Word Artist (2015) by the League of Canadian Poets, Kemp has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems and multimedia galore, Penn’s new collection, INCREMENTALLY, is up as e-book and album on https://www.hempressbooks.com/authors/penn-kemp. Join her on https://www.instagram.com/pennkemp,  https://pennkemp.substack.com/, https://x.com/pennkemp  and facebook.com/pennkemppoet. See www.pennkemp.wordpress.com. She's delighted rob is publishing these poems in the forthcoming chapbook, Lives of the Poets, above/ground press.

Her next readings are in Toronto: details on www.pennkemp.weebly.com.
October 10, 2024. 3:30-4:30,  “New Sonic Poetries,” OCADU Waterfront Campus, 130 Queen’s Quay E, Level 4R
October 2O, 2024, 3-5pm. "Art of Improv", with Bill Gilliam. The Kensington Sound Studio , 170 Baldwin St.
October 21, 2024, 7pm. Art Bar Reading Series, Free Times Café, 320 College Street.