Penn Kemp, Pendas Productions

Music:

Member Since: 1/11/2007
Band Website: www.pennkemp.ca, www.mytown.ca/pennletters/
Band Members: Penn Kemp, Poet/Playwright/Performer and Pendas Poets Series Editor. Gavin Stairs, Publisher/Printer/Designer, Pendas Productions, and Man at Large.

With thanks to all Pendas Poets and Poets Everywhere... and to our collaborators, especially Anne Anglin, Bill Gilliam, John Magyar, Chris Meloche, Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy, Susan McMaster
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQfvxV6dpF4This video presents a performance of poem for peace in many voices in London ON, with many of the 112 translators. Director: Rachel Thompson.

New Books of Poetry from Pendas Poets Series 2008

THE THING ON THE COMB by Charles Mountford. Book. He writes:
"1.. I am a narrative poet rather than a lyric poet.
2.. I quite often write prose poems.
3.. Some of my seminal influences are Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Stephen Leacock, W.O. Mitchell and Woody Allen. Not that I am in any way comparing myself to them.
4.. I agree totally with the Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh who said, "Tragedy is underdeveloped comedy."
5.. I will, by this year, have three books of poetry out, all published by Pendas Productions of London, Ontario. Pendas has been very kind and supportive to me and has done a wonderful job with my books. The books are called: The Harvestman, The Night the Ducks Got Loose and The Thing On The Comb.
6.. Reading this year in Quebec City (400th Anniversary Year), Thunder Bay, Victoria B.C. and Ingersoll, ON. Google me under Charles Mountford, Canadian Poet.”
Congratulations to Charles! His poem has been shortlisted for the prestigious Bridport, United Kingdom, Poetry Prize for 2008. This is the largest Open competition in the English speaking world, with thousands of entries!

PERSIFLAGE by Gregor Loud is Pendas Poets Series No. 13. “If wit is your pot of tea in poetry, Gregor Loud's PERSIFLAGE is just the palatal feast to wake you up to the multi-sensical world that surrounds us. In fact, Loud calls his protean anagrams pomes and the craft that creates them potery… But make no mistake: an alert and knowing intelligence informs this seemingly meaningless banter. For those willing to join the literary romp, there are smiles and there is laughter everywhere, but you never know what shocking absurdity may be revealed to you around the next corner in the twists and turns of these delectable verbal indulgences. The astute reader will hear the author's tongue roiling in the cheek, catch a glimpse of a painful irony behind his deadpan mask. It's all part of the most enjoyable revelry of fun and games.” Henry Beissel. First appeared in Ayorama. Reprinted with permission.

CANTOS NORTH by Henry Beissel. CD. He writes: "CANTOS NORTH is an epic poem in twelve sections that attempts to bring together the many dimensions of our different landscapes and different peoples, their history, both political and geological, in a comprehensive celebration of Canada. A theatre director in Switzerland to whom I sent the poem wrote back to say: ‘What a pity Mahler is dead. He would've set this poem to music.’ In recording the poem I've tried to project some of the different moods and the majestic sweep of the poem. If I'm to believe some of the critics and some of my fellow-poets, CANTOS NORTH has become a Canadian classic. I thought you had to be dead and buried to have written a classic. But I'm still alive. And still writing. In Ottawa now, far from the stark wilderness in which the poem is settled." .

Samsara: Canadian in Asia by Katerina Fretwell. Book. She writes: “Travel for me is a chance to visit different perspectives and adapt better ways of being in contrast to the North American satiety and arrogance. It's the discovery of what other cultures believe, how they live eat and love, how they organize politically and economically, how they group together. I've always wondered what other lives offer. In November, 2004, my husband and I experienced the cultural frisson of Thailand, Vietnam and China, illuminating vastly different ways of being, thinking, believing. My poetry and art in Samsara: Canadian in Asia express the collisions of cultures and my subsequent enlightenment and appreciation.” .

Focus by Doug Valleau is the 15th Pendas Poets volume. This is a selection of poems culled from a lifetime in music and words. It spans the decades with fine imagery and sentiment, exploring many of the forms of contemporary poetry along the way. A potpourrie to tease and enchant the nostrils of imagination.

Trance Form, book by Penn Kemp. First published by Soft Press. P.K. Page writes in her preface: “Trance Form. Its title prepares you. For metamorphoses. For multiple meanings. Trance-verse? Born of trance-illumination? Its tableofcontent prepares you too. For homonyms, puns, complicated word play in the tradition of middle-eastern poetry: mattermater, moonphase, bonepoems. Logic trance-ended; matter trance-muted ‘blown thru and out the other side of reason’…Trance Form is an intricate book. It rewards attention. Read it with three eyes. Although two will do."

Trance Dance Form: Doors Open Live at the Brickworks, cd, SoundSpoke Ensemble. “Sound poet Penn Kemp is at it again. Joining forces with Anne Anglin, Bill Gilliam and Jean Martin, this free-form sound improvisation quartet attacks the boundaries of sound art while navigating the raging river of sound poetry that is "Trance Dance Form". The result is a mesmerizing blend of vocalizations, clatterings, buzzings, shimmering drones, and ivory ticklings that are drenched in emotional and spiritual overtunes/tones.” PsychoSpace SoundNotes Newsletter

Influences: Recent Reviews

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2008/10/success-of-reality-s treet-book-of.html
http://poetryreviews.ca
http://www.mytown.ca/germination/reviews/
Review of Kemp, Penn’s Poem for Peace in Many Voices. London: Pendas, 2002. By Kim Fahner.
http://www.geocities.com/prairiejournal/poemsforpeace.htm
http://www.geocities.com/prairiejournal/gatheringvoices.htm
http://www.geocities.com/prairiejournal/sarasvatiscapes.htm
http://www.smallpressexchange.com/reviews/poetry_reviews/tra nce_dance_form_20060524551/. Review of Kemp, Penn’s Trance Dance Form. London: Pendas. By Katerina Fretwell.

…………………………………………………… ………Video

A video by Teresa Tarasewicz of Penn reading her poem, "Walmart Vs. Woodland", for the Meadowlily rally, London ON, September. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdFOW3ZbeXM

Town Hall panel, September 2008, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKC5YvostAQ Canadian Arts Cuts: Penn Kemp: Read Your Money Mr. Harper! This video by Teresa Tarasewicz was shot at Museum London during a Town Hall meeting to protest the slashing of arts funding by the Harper Government to the Prom-Art program to promote Canadian art and culture to the world. London ON

The London Free Press video of Penn's reflections on the Thames in literature is now up on http://torontosun.feedroom.com/?skin=oneclip&ehv=http:// sunvideo.canoe.ca&fr_story=bd5a60f786dc45d6046e3231d6bed 65e5487d5a9&rf=ev&autoplay=true. the Free Press video (August 8, A River, part 12) is now up on http://lfpress.ca/specialreports/ariver.html: http://sunvideo.canoe.ca?fr_story=bd5a60f786dc45d6046e3231d6 bed65e5487d5a9&fr_chl=31545216e2a9284ac169eb4fec0e065d19 44fedd&rf=bm.

Penn’s videopoem, “To the Brink”: http://sunvideo.canoe.ca?fr_story=ef348828761ad0713667f84781 a52f4c9e78994c&fr_chl=31545216e2a9284ac169eb4fec0e065d19 44fedd&rf=bm.

Videos of Kuhlehorn, the River exhibit at 1 Dundas St., London, Opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bjJqERbo9U and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKC5YvostAQ by Teresa Tarasewicz.

“Turn Your Tack on Tush” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaxA3YDBj6E

“Poem for Peace in Many Voices”, http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/video/721766:Video:653 http://rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/house-sound-and-story/episod e-1-poem-peace-many-voices

http://www.poetryvisualized.com/media/, http://poetsforhumanrights.ning.com/video/video/show?id=7217 66:Video:653

"Not Waving But Drowning, for Gwendolyn McEwen". This poem by Penn is animated in Flash by Jeff Dawson, sparrowheart.ca. It is dedicated to the memory of Canadian modernist poet, Gwendolyn McEwen, whose story it is.

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Jazz musician Bill Gilliam and I have developed this section, Helwa!, from a new Sound Opera of mine, Suite Ancient Egypt. !
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In Helwa!, I am tracing the soul’s journey across one night to rebirth the next day: a classical Egyptian journey which was also my own. I invite you to put your mind at rest as the Pharaoh did, between the imposing paws of the Sphinx, and listen to this poem as he would listen to his dreams there. Let our sound carry you back and across to Egypt, heart of earth’s land mass, whose temples to the divine line the spine along the Nile. The title, Helwa, means Beautiful." !
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Bill and Penn have collaborated on many performances in Toronto, resulting in several CDs of Sound Operas: From The Lunar Plexus, Sarasvati Scapes and Trance Dance Form, as well as a live recording from the Distillery Jazz Festival, Sound Spoke. !
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All CDs are available from Pendas Productions, London Canada!
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With perennial thanks to Anne Anglin, Amanda and Jake Chalmers, Robert Creeley, Jim Kemp, Ann Kerr Linden, Daphne Marlatt, Gwendolyn MacEwen, R. Murray Shafer, Gavin Stairs, Marion Woodman, bill bissett, Four Horsemen, Geode, Bill Gilliam, Daphne Marlatt, Outward Sound Ensemble, PsychoSpace Sound, Sound Opera, Sound Poetry and Zasep Tulku Rinpoche.

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Peace/performance poet, activist and playwright, Penn Kemp performs her eco-poetry in arts festivals and conferences around the world. As well, she reads and gives creativity workshops in local venues, schools and libraries. Raised in London, Penn received her Honours BA (English, UWO) and M.Ed. (OISE, Toronto). Since Coach House published her first book (1972), Penn has been expanding text and aural boundaries. Among her publications are twenty-five books (poetry and drama), ten CDs (Sound Opera and Sound Poetry), Canada's first poetry CD-ROM and six award-winning videopoems. The League of Poets proclaimed her a foremother of Canadian poetry.
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Through Pendas Productions, Penn edits and publishes poetry book/cd combinations: see http://www.skywingpress.com/bookstore.html, mytown.ca/twelfth/. Monthly muse/news is posted on mytown.ca/pennletters. Sample pennkemp.ca, http://www.mytown.ca/pennkemp/.
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Penn presents her Sound Operas in happy collaboration with actors, poets and musicians. Her videopoems have won for best performance (Voice Award), Vancouver Videopoem Festival and been shown throughout Toronto's Nuit Blanche. The Association of Canadian Studies sponsored Penn's tours throughout India and Brazil, with the Canada Council's aid. http://mytown.ca/poemforpeace/ includes the video of Penn's "poem for peace in many voices" and, in audio, many of 125 translations.
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What a hoot!
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Penn Kemp hosted "Gathering Voices", CHRW Talk Radio, archived on www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. Photo credit for the Gathering Voice turtle: Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy.

All CDs are available from Pendas Productions, as is Penn's book on writing, What Springs to Mind.

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A Press Release:)

http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/index.as p?lang=e&param=4&id=1&id3=3&id2=226
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From: "Mathyssen, Irene - Riding 1"
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For Immediate Release
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July 11, 2008
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LONDONER RECOGNIZED BY PARLIAMENT’S POET LAUREATE
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LONDON, ONTARIO – This week local London poet Penn Kemp’s poem “Crossing the Light” was selected by Library of Parliament’s Poet Laureate, John Steffler, as the feature poem this week. Kemp’s poem will be posted on the poetry section of the parliamentary website for the next two years. Penn published her first book in 1972 and has since had 24 other books published. Her “Poem for Peace in Two Voices” has been translated into more than 125 languages and is in circulation worldwide.
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NDP MP Irene Mathyssen (London-Fanshawe) called the news “a well deserved honour and wonderful recognition for a woman who has contributed a great deal to the arts in our community, in our province, and right across Canada.”
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“Penn, with the help of her husband Gavin Stairs, runs her own publishing business, Pendas Productions. She is actively involved in causes she is passionate about, and is a wonderfully creative, entertaining, and inspiring person. Penn is truly a role model for aspiring artists. I am delighted that she has been recognized with this honour, and I am honoured myself to be able to consider Penn a personal friend” said Mathyssen.
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“It is heart warming to celebrate poetry through the parliamentary website,” Kemp commented. “I do want to extend my thanks to Irene as well, because she is such a supporter of my efforts to encourage acts of poetry, and of all the arts in London.“
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In April Kemp performed with MP Charlie Angus at an NDP function at the London Music Club, and was recently featured in an online video as part of the London Free Press series on the Thames River. Kemp has also been a leading force in organizing events to promote the arts in London, from readings at libraries to incorporating poetry in events around the community.
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More information about Penn Kemp’s feature by Parliament’s Poet Laureate can be found online at: http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/index.as p?lang=e&param=4&id=1&id3=3&id2=226
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For more information, please contact: (chose relevant PS) Shawn Lewis, Office of Irene Mathyssen, 519-685-4745, 519-494-0187, or [email protected]
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Penn's Events, 2009 !
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January 30, 8pm. “What the Ear Might Hear”, PlayWrights Cabaret, McManus Studio Theatre, Richmond St., London ON. Contact:
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February 6-8 2009. Brigit Festival. Our theme this year is "Sacred Soulsmith, Elemental Healer" and we thought you would be a perfect fit to lead participants in the use of poetry for healing or soul work. Contact: Brescia Auditorium, Brescia UC, 1285 Western Road London ON Free Parking. The Circle Women’s Centre, Brescia University College 1285 Western Rd. London N6G 1H2 www.brescia.uwo.ca/thecircle Contact: (519) 432-8353 ext. 28288, [email protected]
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 7:30 pm. Poetry London. Free. Landon Library, 167 Wortley Road, London ON. Penn reading with Joanne Arnott. 6:30 pm workshop on the featured poets’ poems with Michelle Doege, www.poetrylondon.ca/. Contact: (519) 439-6240, .!
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About me::

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 http://thelondoner.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1124954

* London poet gains Parliamentary recognition

Penn Kemp, an international star in the poetry world, has been honoured with her poem Crossing the Light being posted on the poetry section of Canada’s parliamentary website for the next two years.

Ben Benedict Photo London poet gains Parliamentary recognition By Ben Benedict

Internationally recognized poet Penn Kemp of London will be celebrating her 64th birthday on Aug. 4 from the stage of The McManus Studio Theatre as part of this year’s Fringe Festival.

However, as an artist she’s already received one of the greatest gifts a professional can receive – her work has been posted on the government of Canada’s website by Canada’s Library of Parliament’s poet laureate, John Steffler.

“John Steffler and I know each other,” Ms. Kemp says. “When he was here reading for Poetry London last autumn he asked me to participate and send him a poem. The maximum number of lines was 90 and Crossing the Light is exactly 90 lines.“The poem is about the dead crossing over so it’s touched a lot of people’s lives."

"I really want to credit Irene Mathyssen for all her support and the results she achieves.”“It’s a well deserved honour and wonderful recognition for a woman who has contributed a great deal to the arts in our community, in our province, and right across Canada,” says Mrs. Mathyssen. “Penn, with the help of her husband Gavin Stairs, runs her own publishing business, Pendas Productions. She is actively involved in causes she is passionate about, and is a wonderfully creative, entertaining, and inspiring person. Penn is truly a role model for aspiring artists.”

While it’s a great honour to receive such recognition, Ms. Kemp’s accolades began years ago, having made her living exclusively as a poet for nearly 40 years with 25 books published and her 10th sound opera.

“I’m certainly one of the elder sound poets and the League of Canadian Poets has awarded to me the title of Foremother of Canadian Poetry,” she says. “It was 1972 when I was 28 when I published my first book. I became a sound poet in giving birth and listening how my children learned to speak. In 1979 I performed at Convocation Hall with the Four Horsemen and Allan Ginsberg. The Canada Council for the Arts has sent me on tours of India, Brazil, England and Germany and it was phenomenal being hosted everywhere. I’ve also been keen on the exploration of different languages and incorporating their sounds.”

She also considers herself fortunate, now living in the home of her birth, to have been raised in a creative family.

“I think growing up in this very creative household and studying English with Ross Woodman (had something to do with it). My dad was James Kemp, a local artist. His paintings are at Museum London, the McIntosh Gallery and other area galleries,” Ms. Kemp says. “The big change for me came after I married and taught for year when we travelled the galleries of Europe in 1967-68. It was really revolutionary for me. We were even run off the road by tanks in Czechoslovakia when the Russians invaded with a half hour to get to the border before it closed. I’ve made my living since 1970 as a poet.”

Much of that success has been connected to her experiences here in London after leaving Toronto years ago.

“My home embodies my whole life. It’s that combination between contained and free. I’m loving London. I wanted to see the world when I was young but this has really become a creative city and it’s easier to get things done here both creatively and politically.”

A consummate writer, performer and networker, her work has been seen across the globe with her Poem for Peace in Two Voices having been translated into more than 125 languages and is in circulation worldwide.

“It began when a friend translated it into French and then while in Brazil I had a friend translate it into Portuguese and another to Spanish. Then in Ottawa at the Dialogue Through Poetry... in 2002 we took it to the United Nations in celebration of World Poetry Day, March 21. In 2004 I was the Ontario representative for the department of heritage’s World Poetry Day, performing at Central Secondary School. We’re now preparing our third volume and CD.

“I’m a morning person so I usually write in the morning but I’m also up in the middle of the night writing also. It’s constant so I’m not strict with myself. I’m really interested in collaborations and multimedia explorations as well.”

Like any great artist however, you are only as great as your next performance and that takes place this August as part of the London Fringe Festival.

“Miscommunication Highway is by Chris Meloche with Jeff Culbert and I reading spam emails and reacting to them. They’ll be improvised and each performance will be different.”

WANT MORE INFO?

You can view Penn Kemp’s poem, Crossing the Light, poem of the week on www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/poet/index.asp?lang= e&param=4. It will be posted for two years. For more information or to read more of her works visit www.mytown.ca/pennkemp.

Communication Breakdown: A Journey Down the Misinformation Highway by Chris Meloche and featuring Jeff Culbert and Penn Kemp with video animation by Maurice Carroll and sound by Chris Meloche plays the London Fringe Festival Aug. 1 to 4, Article ID 1124954
Sounds Like: "Canada's cultural fabric is woven with some exceptional talent in music, film, spoken word, dance, theatre and poetry. And tightly woven into this wonderful fabric is a notable poet by the name of Penn Kemp. It is not only her ability with words that we celebrate, but her wisdom of the human soul and her love for the human spirit. Penn's poetry, music and spoken word are strong threads that uphold human values that are not only Canadian, but indeed Universal." Nancy Houle - Chair, Brantford Arts Conference '06, Vice President - www.successtracs4artists.com

"Pendas Publications are works of beauty. Edited with purpose and clarity, they are exquisite to hold and behold. The care taken to create the books speaks loudly of their soul life." Mary Hamilton, MEd, BodySoul Rhythms

"It is always exciting for poetry lovers when a new publisher emerges on the scene, and when the name Penn Kemp, a poet best known for her evocative, experimental sound work, is associated with that press, it is safe to assume that work that is both innovative and challenging is in the mix.
Certainly, more than a dozen new works offered up by Pendas in 2004 fulfill that assumption. Most of the books in Pendas' catalogue offer some visual treats and may be purchased as a book alone, as a compact disk or as a book/cd set.
Pendas Productions' Wizard of OZ, Gavin Stairs, who acts as designer, prepress technician, printer and binder, has long felt that poetry, unlike other genres, could benefit from the innovations of desktop printing. Pendas' aim is to use short print runs, both to meet demand and to keep initial costs to a minimum, while ensuring that titles stay in print for as long as possible. That kind of commitment is music to poetry lovers' ears." RONNIE R. BROWN is an Ottawa freelance writer/broadcaster. This review in another form appears in Canadian Bookseller: The Magazine of Book Retailing

These comments show that participatory performance is alive and well!..... "This term, a local poet, Penn Kemp, performed sound poetry in class. I was completely amazed by her performance because it revealed an entirely new form, meaning, understanding of poetry for me. ... The biggest thing that I learned from Penn Kemps presentation was what it felt like to have my whole body understand what a poet is trying to say... I finally understood what you had been trying to get across all year with regard to poetry interpretation. "

"Penn Kemp was one of the most unique speakers I have ever heard.... The way Penn did her reading of her poem 'for b.p. nichol' was by far one of the most bizarre and also fascinating things I've ever heard. ... I really like how she made things _sound_ the way they actually sounded... The thing I really took away from the whole thing was the ability to read and write poetry in a slightly different way. In the past I have always emphasized structural and visual elements. I am now able to see and place emphasis on words and sounds which adds a new depth to it. "

"The last but definitely not least [thing I learned] (in actuality the following will be the most influential) we had a lengthly discussion of Penn Kemp teaching us to throw practicality and conformity out the window. Poetry, or anything creative for that matter, requires no trace of being practical. Poetry is awsome and out of control. If I've learned anything about life this past eight months from what I've learned about poetry, it is exactly that. ...I know that most of us felt silly chanting Kemp's poem until our tongues dried; however that is what makes creativity so beautiful. Penn Kemp taught me to find beauty in the wildness of poetry rather than condemning it for its lack of practicality."

"As we participated in her sound opera, I felt uncomfortable and foolish because it simply did not match my style and feelings. At the same time there were individuals in the class who were intrigued and interested. ... I was drawn into the poem, however, because I began to imagine being in the mind of the person speaking in the poem. It was the sounds around me (and those coming from my own mouth) that allowed me to enter into the experience of what this woman who lost her love was thinking and feeling. It certainly would not have happened if I had simply read aloud the words off a page."

"The sound poetry that was presented to us is by far the form that speaks the most to me. I have never been attracted to still life paintings where the emotion is rooted in symbolism if it is there at all. What I have been attracted to is surrealist and abstract pieces, Salvador Dali and the like. For me, at least, sound poetry seems to work in the same way. It conveys the idea and emotion in a deeper sense-based way that makes us look at everyday words and ideas in a new way and with a new angle."

"Penn Kemp is nothing short of an astonishing woman. ... Walking into class that day now upon looking back, although I had all the proper tools -- books, pens, glasses, an open ear and an open mind, I was still somehow unprepared for what I saw and what I leaned from it an am still currently learning. ... what I saw was contemporary poetry coming alive not merely being words on a page or something to be learned and gotten through but something to witness and enjoy and that is the most precious thing that I learned... It is her infectious passion for her craft that made me fall in love with poetry all over again"

"From her opening statements and first glance as she walked through the door, we could see Penn Kemp was a living poem. She herself personified bits and pieces of the poems we had read all year. ... It was as if all of the poets we studied got together and wrote a poem and Penn Kemp was their piece come to life. ... the most profound lesson learned from Penn Kemp was that poetry is all around us. I could see poetry in Penn as she walked in, and I am surrounded by poetry every day."
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Record Label: Pendas Productions. Producer: PsychoSpace Sound
Type of Label: Indie