Lives of Dead Poets by Penn Kemp

From Penn Kemp, one of our true elder trailblazers, is a new chapbook, Lives of Dead Poets (Above/Ground Press) A lament for those who have left/the present, the planet and possibility/behind, left us bewildered by/no more/words.

This is a poignant, affectionate collection leveraging a variety of forms and voices, for the most part a tribute to a remarkable era in Canadian literature centring on the early 70’s, one I very much wish I had known personally.  At the time Kemp found herself in the middle of Toronto’s flourishing poetry scene, publishing her first book Bearing Down in 1972, editing the first anthology of women’s writing in Canada next, and then hosting a new reading series at A Space Gallery.  Due to the Canada Council’s generosity at the time, it was possible to bring in poets from across Canada and even the United States. All this placed Kemp in a remarkable circle, as reflected by those she elegizes. She also reminisces in an separately published essay:  https://periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2025/03/penn-kemp-one-by-one-they-depart-great.html

After two introductory pieces (“Lives of Dead Poets”; and the punningly entitled “Die Verse”) the first memory is of Gwendolyn MacEwen (“Not Waving But Drowning”).  This is a simply brilliant piece, for me the strongest in the collection, very heartfelt and sad.  It tells of a time when MacEwen (who was to pass on in 1987 at age 46 from complications of alcoholism) showed up for a reading a day late (The night after what would have been/triumph if you had appeared/you appear, bleary, beckoning to me/against the wall) and proceeds to reflect on her tragic decline.

Two other poets who died young are included:  bp nichol (For bp nichol: A loss as alive now as/then) and Teva Harrison (Not One of These Poems Is About You, said Teva), perhaps best known for documenting her journey with metastatic breast cancer.

One of the minority of American poets found in these pages (the others are Canadian), Robert Creely, is gifted two poems (“Gone Fishing“; and “Wednesday’s Man”), quite appropriate given that for Kemp of the old poets, the one/I most/miss is Creely.

“Reading: Bob in the Light of” provides a sketch constructed of anecdotes for Bob Hogg, and some wisdom on a poet’s body of work: …The night//before you died, you/replied— /it goes on even when we no longer do!”  Along the same lines is “The Girl from Sao Paolo”, a humorous narrative of a visit by P.K. Page to Kemp’s Toronto Island home: At the stove’s first growl, she leapt up and alighted/for the evening on the couch arm.

Special mention must be made of James Reaney and Colleen Thibaudeau, husband and wife icons of Souwesto (a term for Southwestern Ontario popularized by Reaney). A pair of beautiful tributes are happily included here, in the form of updated versions of two pieces that originally appeared in Kemp’s collection Local Heroes: the lightly revised “Drawing in Miniatures” for Reaney; and the significantly reworked “Social Justice Recounted”, ReStoried (formerly titled Recounted, ReStored, ReStoried) for Thibaudeau.

Two American poets (that, as Kemp has written in the aforementioned essay, she did not meet but whose poetry she admired) are also represented: Jack Spicer (“For Jack Spicer”) and John Ashbery (“Alphabet for Ashbery”). The latter is a very nice piece whose enjoyment would be enhanced by possessing a good appreciation of the subject; and my enjoyment of the former, I have to admit, suffered on account of my unfamiliarity with Spicer.

Lovely homages feature Phyllis Webb (“The Poet in Charge”:You are the glimmer     between sea/and sky/your poems still arrest us) and Robert Kroetsch (“A great illumination”: Of prescient kindness one/of a kind).

The last two elegies are both unusual. “Joe for Joe, Encore” is an affectionate dual tribute entwining Joe Blades and Joe Rosenblatt (Yet what I recall/most tenderly is your kind selves). In “Homage for Ellen S. Jaffe, Poet”, we meet Jaffe on her death bed, but still engaged: Ellen,     grey,     lying on//pillows,     blows us kisses   from her bed.

Closing the circle, we have the concluding piece “One by One They Depart, the Great Ones”, a touching reflection on times gone by and poets and friends passed on.  For one who wasn’t there, this chapbook is a precious glimpse into an extraordinary time and a special group of writers. Happily for all of us, we have their works, and, as Kemp says, “As the poets fall into their tradition/our beloved dead are more intimate/now than ever they could be in flesh.”

Jennifer Wenn

Website

Jennifer Wenn is a trans-identified writer and speaker from London, Ontario.  Her first poetry chapbook, A Song of Milestones, has been published by Harmonia Press (an imprint of Beliveau Books).  She has also written From Adversity to Accomplishment, a family and social history; and published poetry in WordCity Literary Journal, Shot Glass Journal, The Stratford Quarterly, Beliveau Review, Journey of the Heart, The Ekphrastic Review, Watchyourhead, Open Minds Quarterly, Tuck Magazine, Synaeresis, Big Pond Rumours, Poetry Pause, Fresh Voices, Wordsfestzine, and the anthologies Poems in Response to Peril, Dénouement and Things That Matter.  She has also spoken at a wide variety of venues and is the proud parent of two adult children.  Visit her website at jenniferwennpoet.wixsite.com/home 

• Jennifer Wenn

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  June 26, 2022

  P.S. by Penn Kemp and Sharon Thesen