Featuring

PENN KEMP and ROB WELCH

PENN KEMP

London, Ontario poet/ performer Penn Kemp is London’s first Poet Laureate!

Penn Kemp has published twenty-five books of poetry and drama, had six plays and ten CDs of Sound Opera produced as well as several award-winning videopoems: www.mytown.ca/pennletters.

Penn was the Canada Council Writer-in-Residence at UWO for 2009-10.

Her project was the DVD, Luminous Entrance: a Sound Opera for Climate Change Action (Pendas Productions, 2010) which will be launched here in Toronto October 21. Five Sound Operas have been performed at London’s Aeolian Hall Summer Soirees as well as UWO, across Canada and at festivals in Glastonbury, India and Brazil.

She hosts the eclectic literary Gathering Voices, on CHRWradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. The League of Poets proclaimed Penn one of ten foremothers of Canadian poetry.

Read and hear more on www.mytown.ca/pendas/ and http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/kemp/.

ROB WELCH

Originally from Shakespeare’s town in England, Rob now lives in Annex. He joined the poetry community about three years ago when, shy and shaking, he read for the first time in public. Since then he has participated frequently on the open mike at “Hot Sauced Words“, “the Art Bar“, “RDRR“, and “Livewords“.

His poems have been read in Madrid, Barcelona, Buenas Aires, Birmingham, Essene, Rome, Naples, Essene, Piapot and Waubeshene.

Although unpublished he takes heart in the comments of his fellow poets:

“AMAZING, keep that close to your chest and blow em away at your feature” – Joe Dewar

“this is a complex poem that bridges the world of science and nature and the world of the Arts” – Tony Piper

“the tenderness and the sadness and the foreboding all mixed” – Sue Reynolds

“Lovely.” – Sonia Di Placido

“That totally rocks, Not only are the moods complex, but your imagery is very consistent, tying it up together nicely.” – Shawn Mcleod

“I LOVE this piece!” – James Dewar

“I love this SO MUCH ” – Carri Edwards

And luxuriates in a poem written about him as a birthday present by Edward Nixon – “Alive to night”
“. . . . .
he had subjects and objects
in his hands like golden balls
orbiting a juggler’s flashy arc
he had tricks in his pockets
for dangerous times
. . . .”

** Please note that Penn Kemp’s reading is sponsored in part by The League of Canadian Poets and the Canada Council for the Arts.**