Travelling Light

Mary Jane Starr was with the National Library of Canada in Ottawa.

Penny Kemp is versatile and prolific. This is her ninth collection of poetry; she is also an editor, anthologist, and playwright. She has had three plays staged, has edited several anthologies, has given many workshops and has performed at numerous arts festivals.

The key to Kemp’s subject matter in the work at hand may be found in “Country Matters,” an evocative account of an unexpected reunion with a former sweetheart on a southern Ontario train. He states, “I did my dissertation on the pastoral because/of you. You were always in landscape and you keep/that part of you alive.” The poet can breathe life into the pastoral through description, imagery and anthropomorphism without becoming sloppily romantic. Rather, she uses nature effectively as context for some gruesome events. For example, amid a lazy summer haze, two accidental deaths are summed up in brutally chilling terms — “the guy’s fried,” and “the boy’s brain mush” in “August Flies: Cremation” and “Regardless,” respectively. The problem with this work is that the poetry is too often ordinary. On occasion, the poet ironically blends the mundane with insight as in “Ahead of Philosophy” where an observation of a pond in winter concludes with a wry comment on the effect of human urination on nature ... “fanning, the goldfish turn carp.” However, the title, Travelling Light, is an accurate summation of the unenduring nature of the book’s contents.