Ordinary Moving: A Memoir in Verse by Penn Kemp

Reviewed by Antoinette Voûte Roeder

Coming to Ordinary Moving as a reviewer seems at first a daunting task. So rich, so densely packed, exuberant to the point of words tripping on one another, how can a mere review begin to do justice to this work? On the other hand, how could one resist? The title of the book already says something about its appeal and its accessibility. A poem does not really come alive until we bring our own experience to dialogue with it, and here we have ample opportunity to do so, delving back into days of childhood, tracing youth as it moves into adulthood, into parenthood and grandparenthood, eventually including three generations.

That said, if I were to put the overall effect of Penn’s work into musical terms, I would say it crescendos to the climactic poem called Heather, seven pages long, and gradually diminuendos to the end. No part of this oeuvre loses its punch, but the depth of human experience, pathos, compassion, and grief comes to expression in Heather.

From the very beginning of this volume we are regaled with the words of children’s songs and games. They are found throughout the poems but most prevalent in the first part which begins with “We tossed the ball against a wall…” in Catch as Catch Can. The games and gifts of childhood, the imaginary friend, the extracurricular classes which parents enroll us in, all are depicted in ringing musical tones, delicious alliteration, and a continuous joyful play of words, rhyme, artistic and literary references.

In part two, we do a flashback to the poet’s conception and birth. Halloween takes on special significance, it being the night on which she was likely conceived, only to be repeated when she herself conceives her son on Halloween. This poem, All Hallow’s brought out some of the poet’s most lyrical lines and references to Renaissance art, cherubs, and vaulted ceilings. From the words and imagery, one cannot help but catch a hint of the annunciation story as depicted in the Christian gospels.

These poems flow in long lines across the page and come to an abrupt change of style in Heather in part three. We know we have entered another domain, another dimension with this poem. Heather has an almost mythical beginning, conjuring up black and white sketches from an old book I might have encountered as a child. This section is titled Over the Marsh and Far Away, this poem occupies the entire section. The first stanza describes the natural setting of a bog, a marsh, with heron and bittern present. But we are not spared. Already at the outset we are told, “She is lost and drowning, hair caught, net-tangled.” This stanza ends in, “She follows the false fairy-fire, green/ foxfire further beyond any known path.” The alliteration is superb. The subject is the suicide of a young step-daughter which is depicted in the visual aspects of this poem in short, clipped phrases, jagged lines, lined up like blocks upon one another, at times like stair steps, indented, with very sparse punctuation. All the poet’s artistry comes to fruition in this long poem, the visual, the aural, and the inner life that feeds a poet, her grief, her inability to fix anything. Though her poem does not end here, the lines that struck me are:

“Leaving is best

left to the end

when nothing is

left.”

The premature sacrifice of a life is here enshrined and lamented in the most profound way and also, in the end, accepted. “We move on. We move in. We move through,” proclaims the poet. One wonders after this what more can be said? We sit with the finality of “Gone, gone, completely,” the last words of this poem. We need time to take it all in, perhaps even days before we can read on.

Part four contains only four poems. We have now moved into grandmotherhood and the delight of a granddaughter, another Halloween, and ending with a quick reprise to the poet at age seven.

Part five contains three poems, starting with Wilder Elder which again, as in the very first poem of this book, quotes a children’s game, but it’s a poem about feeling one’s age, one’s vulnerability. Play the Game is the second poem and starts, “One foot. The other foot. Each motion opens/to a moment, the poem as glimpse into a life.” We live our lives, we make our choices, not always wise, and in the end it’s “Degeneration all round.” But “kindness endures. Kindness lasts.”

The last poem has the book’s title Ordinary Moving, summarizing very succinctly what in essence we have experienced in this book: moving through the seasons of a woman’s life, and in her last words, “looking for wisdom.” There’s no punctuation at the end of this poem, it is open-ended, as this is an ongoing quest.

It’s a privilege to read a work so carefully crafted, so beautifully thought out, mature, and deeply felt. This is a keeper.

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About the Author

Poet and playwright Penn Kemp has participated in Canadian cultural life for sixty years- writing, editing, and publishing poetry, fiction, and plays. She shares the richness of her experience through a unique use of word, sound, imagery and symbolism. Her work explores environmental and feminist concerns, though she is best known as a sound poet. Delighting in multimedia, Penn is active across the web.

About the Reviewer

Antoinette Voûte Roeder is a poet and mentor in Edmonton, Alberta. Her degrees are in music, her first love. After teaching piano for 27 years, she was drawn to follow the Pacific Jubilee Program in Spiritual Direction as offered at the Vancouver School of Theology. One of Antoinette’s loves is supporting others in their creative writing endeavours which she does both in her extensive correspondence but also in the bi-annual poetry retreat days she offers.

Antoinette is an environmentalist committed to the health and well-being of our beleaguered earth, our only home. Her books are available on Amazon.ca.

Book Details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Silver Bow Publishing

• Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 7 2025

• Language ‏ : ‎ English

• Print length ‏ : ‎ 72 pages

• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1774033518

• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1774033517