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Penn is a poet, performer and playwright living in London ON. "Penn Kemp is a writer with both international experience and a wide variety of connections within her local community. Primarily known as a poet, she is also a playwright and essayist, with expertise in editing and teaching. Penn works across a variety of poetic practices: she has, for example, been celebrated by the League of Canadian Poets as one of the foremothers of Canadian Poetry, and her work in new media forms has been documented in several doctoral dissertations. Since Coach House Press published her first book in 1972, Penn has been pushing textual and aural boundaries, often in participatory performance. Among her publications are more than twenty five books of poetry and drama, ten CDs of Sound Opera, eight videopoems, and Canada’s first poetry CD-ROM. Artistically, Penn has collaborated with a variety of writers, artists, and musicians. For instance, a series of her eco-poems was set to music and performed at Toronto’s Music Gallery as part of the Composer Now Face to Face series, in an evening of world premieres of new music. Her most recent piece, Luminous Entrance, a song cycle of ecopoetry, was presented at Brescia Universtiy College in London, Ontario. In happy collaboration, Penn presents her Sound Operas live and archived on her radio show,"Gathering Voices", www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. Through Pendas Productions, she edits and publishes poetry book/cd combinations: see http://mytown.ca/twelfth/ and www.mytown.ca/vivalavida. Long a peace and eco-activist, Penn has MC’d many conferences on such subjects. http://mytown.ca/poemforpeace/ includes the video of her "poem for peace in many voices" and, in audio, many of 125 translations. Penn received her M.Ed in History and Philosophy for O.I.S.E, U. of Toronto, writing her thesis on creativity. Sections of What Springs to Mind, her book on creative writing, are up on www.mytown.ca/whatspringstomind. Penn has considerable experience as a writer-in-residence, having served in this role in Buffalo, Labrador, Ontario, Brazil and India. The Association of Canadian Studies and the Canada Council sponsored Penn's reading tours throughout India and Brazil. She has also performed at arts festivals and conferences around the world, including two Findhorn Arts Festivals and the Glastonbury Goddess Conference. She was Canada Council writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario for 2009-10. Penn is an enthusiastic practitioner of the creativity she teaches. She has been giving workshops for forty years. Her years of Buddhist practice has led her to give dozens of workshops on Sarasvati ( Hindu and Buddhist deity of the arts), “Inspiration” and on “Invoking Your Muse”. An intrigue with ancient mythology has taken her on many journeys, in search especially of Black Madonnas in all their guises. Penn's fascination with Egypt led her to visit twice, once with other metaphysical teachers, and again as tour leader. Her latest CDs are"Helwa!", from Suite Ancient Egypt ,and Darkness Visible, available from Pendas Productions. Her Muse/news is monthly updated on www.mytown.ca/pennletters. ps. 1977 was when Pendas was born, not Penn! Pendas Productions originated iin the production of "The Epic of Toad and Heron", a play performed on Ward's Island to help save Island homes from demolishment. It's available from www.playwrightsguild.ca. The symbol of the flying toad still flourishes on the Toronto Island flag. And the homes remain...
