Poetry Month 2012: Penn Kemp - Naturalized, the Dream Spreads into my Back Yard

London, Ontario activist poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has received the Queen Elizabeth 11 Diamond Jubilee medal for service to the arts. As the inaugural Poet Laureate for the City of London (2010-12), she initiated and judged Poetry in Motion both years and performed in many civic functions. She was Canada Council Writer-in-Residence for Western for 2009-10. Since her first book was published by Coach House Press in 1972, she has been pushing textual and aural boundaries, often in participatory performance work.

For more information, visit http://mytown.ca/pennletters/ . Penn hosts an eclectic literary show, Gathering Voices, archived on http://chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices/.

Naturalized, the Dream Spreads into my Back Yard

It is raining. I have fallen asleep listening
to a downpour on my vinyl greenhouse roof.

I have fallen asleep listening to laments by
Natalie Goldberg. Nat, she will call herself

when chiding or coaching or encouraging
more writing. Other gnats have emerged

from hibernation or larvae to buzz around
my face, agitated by the oncoming storm.

Or are these midges? Fungus gnats all
winter have harboured among my too well

watered plants, breeding, eating the sweet
succulence and now gathered to fly, to die.

The pressure before a storm weighs down
upon my head, flattening the scalp, wedging
weird, worried premonition into febrile brain.

Lightning flickers and the computer growls,
regurgitates. It will go on backup if struck,

I hope. Thunder grumbles back, wobbling
the window frame but still safely far off so

such a squall will not shake free more drama
of stirring boughs and pelting rain. For as I

sleep, Natalie softly advises writers to rein in
their wild mind though it might rear and buck.

All night long I listen to her Thunder & Lightning
tape. Now in morning sun, I plant snapdragons,
flowers to preside over our lawn with stately nods.

Dimensions cross over like clear water colour,
merging disparate realities to reclaim and refract

the Light. Like calls to like across the springing air
when all articulation seems not just possible but essential.



*Note – Photo of Penn Kemp taken by Charles Earl.





Free Counter