Autoretrato de Kahlo by Penn Kemp

Self Portrait with Monkey, by Frida Kahlo, 1938.

Autoretrato de Kahlo

Hands on hip
this woman looks so-
lid.            Emp-
ty.   Light streams
 
body’s dispersal.
Flashes off solar
plex
us.
 
Vast night sky.  Burnt
umber pushes
her head past her eyes.
 
Anguish wished far
for.  Wide spread
skirt.  Ecstasy on
going.
 
Light so light and
lovely.  Who though is
ready for this
final    dis/
solution?

Penn Kemp

London ON performance poet, activist and playwright Penn Kemp is the 40th Life Member of the League of Canadian Poets and their 2015 Spoken Word Artist of the Year. As Writer-in-Residence for Western University, her project was the DVD, Luminous Entrance: a Sound Opera for Climate Change Action, Pendas Productions. Her latest works are two anthologies for the Feminist Caucus Archives of the League of Canadian Poets and the Guild of Canadian Playwrights, to be launched at the Writers’ Summit at Harbourfront in June. Forthcoming is a new collection of poetry, Barbaric Cultural Practice and a play, The Triumph of Teresa Harris. www.mytown.ca/pennkemp                                                       Adapted from Eidolons, White Pine Press, and my anthology, Twelfth Key, http://www.mytown.ca/twelfth/.