Poetry as performance on radio works because it is primarily aural, true to its origins around a Neolithic fire. Sound Opera is a new form Penn developed in performance and recording in a desire to lift poetry off the page to the stage. Sound Opera is based on text but it expands poetic possibilities to include voice, music and computer manipulation to express narrative when emotions burst the seams of print. Radio is its perfect medium!
Penn has returned to her old home for good. Since 1966, she has taught creative writing and sounding in Canadian schools, from Kindergarten to University. Penn has published twenty-five books of poetry and drama, had six plays and ten CDs produced as well as Canada's first poetry CD-ROM and several award-winning videopoems. She performs in festivals around the  world. Her Muse News is renewed monthly on Penn's website, Facebook, Twitter [www.twitter.com/pennkemp] and Myspace. Her latest Sound Opera is now a DVD, Luminous Entrance, available from Pendas Productions. Penn was the James A. and Marjorie Spenceley / Canada Council Writer-in-Residence at Western for 2009-10.
All episodes below have been compressed for quick download. If you would like a broadcast quality copy of Gathering Voices for re-broadcast please visit the NCRA Program Exchange website.
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Broadcast Schedule and Archive 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 6-6:30 pm, 2010 (Repeated Wednesday, January 7, 2009, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #10. Interview with activist author Judy Rebick. Click here for photos. Listen!
Wednesday, January 13, 6-6:30 pm, 2010 (Repeated Wednesday, January 20, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #11. Luminous Entrance: a Sound Opera. With Penn, Anne Anglin, Ruth Douthwright, Robert Menegoni and singer/songwriter Brenda McMorrow. To be performed January 21 at Brescia along with Ruth Douthwright and Jocelyn Drainie.
Check out the introduction to Luminous Entrance here. Listen!
Wednesday, January 27, 6-6:30 pm, 2010 (Repeated Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #12. Interview with activist filmmaker Velcrow Ripper. Click here for photos. Listen!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010, 66-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #13. Interview with Bonnie Burnard, London ON novelist (Suddenly). Listen!
Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #14. Interview with Barbara Godard, editor of Wider Boundaries of Daring: The Modernist Impulse in Canadian Women’s Poetry Listen!
Wednesday, March 10, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #15. Interview with Barry Dempster, author of new books from Brick Books and Pedlar Press. Listen!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (repeated Wednesday, March 31, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #16. Di Brandt reading Bouquet for St. Mary. (Pendas Productions). Listen!
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, April 14, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #17. Interview with Elizabeth Waterston, London ON author and editor. Click here for photos. Listen!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, May 19, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #19. Interview with Teri Degler, author of The Divine Feminine Fire. Listen!
Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 6 pm, 94.9 FM Radio Western, and all week on www.chrwradio.com/listen . The show is repeated June 2, 6:30-7:00 am, 94.9 FM and archived on www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices. Gathering Voices features "Poem for Peace in Many Voices" in many translations, from Volume 2, Pendas. Donovan Banerjee has set Penn's "Poem for Peace in Many Voices" to music for The WomenSpiritSong Choir.Listen!
Wednesday, June 9, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #21, Penn Kemp, reading from Throo, Part 1. Moonstone Press. Listen!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, June 30, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #22. Katerina Fretwell, Samsara. CD, Pendas Productions. Listen!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, July 14, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).Show #23. Patricia Keeney and Penn Kemp, Vocal Braidings. CD, Pendas Productions. Listen!
Wednesday, July 21, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, July 28, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #24. Henry Beissel, Cantos North. CD, Pendas Productions. Listen!
Wednesday, August 4, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, August 11, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #25. Susan McMaster, Until The Light Bends. CD, Pendas Productions.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, August 25, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #26. Penn Kemp, reading from Throo, Part 2. Moonstone Press.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, September 8, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #27. Heather Haley, Aural Heather / Princess Nut, RWP Records
Wednesday, September 15, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #28. Penn Kemp, reading from Throo, Part 3. Moonstone Press
Wednesday, September 29, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #29. Penn Kemp, reading from Throo, Part 4. Moonstone Press
Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, October 20, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #30. Live performances from the House of Pan with Penn Kemp, Bill Gilliam and Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy
Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, November 3, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #31. On Our Own Spoke with Anne Anglin, Bill Gilliam and John Magyar
Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated Wednesday, November 17, 2010, 6:30-7:00 am).
Show #32. Penn Kemp, reading from Throo, Part 5. Moonstone Press. For Demeter and Persephone.
Archived Shows
2009
Wednesday, September 2, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated September 9, 6:30—7am).
Show #1 Introducing Gathering Voices: Ben Benedict’s interview with Penn. Listen online.
Wednesday, September 16, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated September 23, 6:30 —7 am, 2009).
Show #2 Penn’s interview with Leona Graham, The Great Returning: Inhabiting Our MotherWorld. Listen online.
Wednesday, September 30, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated October 7, 6:30—7 am).
Show #3 Gathering Voice (book/cd, Pendas Productions) by Gloria Alvernaz Mulcahy and Penn, performed with Anne Anglin. Listen online.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated October 21, 6:30—7 am).
Show #4 Like Light Off Water (cd, LostSound.com). Daphne Marlatt reads passages from Steveston. Music composed and performed by Robert Minden and Carla Hallett. Listen online.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated November 4, 6:30—7 am).
Show #5 Sounding Minutia: Discussion circle with Penn Kemp and participatory sounding of Robert Kelly’s Minutia at the McIntosh Gallery, The University of Western Ontario. Check out the pictures taken by Gavin Stairs and read The Gazette's review. Listen online.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated November 18, 6:30—7 am).
Show #6 When The Heart Parts: A Sound Opera (cd, Pendas Productions) by Penn, performed along with Anne Anglin, John Blackwood and John Magyar. Listen online.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009, 6—6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated December 2, 2009, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #7 Interview with London ON novelist Joan Barfoot. Listen online.
Wednesday, December 9, 6-6:30 pm (Repeated December 16, 2009, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #8 Interview with Stratford poet Charles Mountford. Click here for photos. Listen online.
Wednesday, December 23, 6-6:30 pm, 2009 (Repeated Wednesday, December 30, 2009, 6:30-7:00 am)
Show #9. Interview with London ON novelist Kane X. Faucher. Listen online.
INTERVIEWS
Frances Itani - 2008 01 30
Susan McCaslin - 2007-12-19
Edeet Ravel - 2007-12-05
Special Live Talk Show -- Interview with Barry Callaghan and Lon Milo DuQuette
Interview with Gil Adamson (The Outlander) - 2007/08/01
WRITING EXCERCISES FROM What Springs to Mind
The Mind is a Camera, For Me it was Foxes - 2007/08/15
On Our Own Spoke (What Springs to Mind)
- 2007/07/04
FROM On Our Own Spoke (cdrom/ cd, Pendas Productions) by Penn, performed with Anne Anglin, and What Springs to Mind (book, Pendas Productions, www.mytown.ca/whatspringstomind) by Penn.
SOUND OPERAS
Sarasvati Scapes: A Sound Opera - 2007 10 10
Sarasvati Scapes: a Sound Opera (book/ cd, Pendas Productions). Written and performed by Penn and Angela Hryniuk.
From the Lunar Plexus: A Sound Opera - 2007-09-26
From The Lunar Plexus: a Sound Opera (book/ cd, Pendas Productions) by Penn , performed with Anne Anglin, Bill Gilliam, Penn and John Magyar.
Darkness Visible: A Sound Opera - 2007-09-12
Darkness Visible: a Sound Opera (cd/book, Pendas Productions) by Penn and electroacoustic composer Chris Meloche.
Helwa!- 2007/08/29
Penn’s “Poem for Peace in Two Voices” translated into Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics by Daniel Kolos and performed by him with Penn in English as well. Helwa!: a Sound Opera (cd/book, Pendas Productions) by Penn. Music by Bill Gilliam.
Sound Opera from Trance Form -- 2007/07/18
Trance Dance Form (cd/book, Pendas Productions) by Penn with musicians Bill Gilliam and Jean Martin.
Host:
Penn Kemp
penn @ pennkemp.ca
“Now
embrace the whole
green planet.
It is possible
to be that large.
The time is come.
It is not just
possible.
It is necessary.”
"Embrace the whole" comes from Re:Vision, a Seasonal Song Cycle of Ecco Poetry. Lyrics by Penn. Song written and performed by Brenda McMorrow.
Recorded by John Magyar for Pendas Productions.
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