Selected Isolation by Penn Kemp

Family and Rainstorm, by Alex Colville, 1955.

Selected Isolation 
(after Alex Colville)
 
The figures for all their bold intent
amble out of the hand onto a brave
and patient page:  all that love's
indignant dance compressed to
two dimensions.
 
The rhythm of a possible human
here stripped to elementals
on the edge of outgoing breath.
 
The plastic arrangement of surface
is what it seems.  Enough to be
informed as a particular choice
of magic.  Of even light
 
a delicate compromise.
 
 Penn Kemp
 
An earlier version of this poem appears in Penn Kemp's chapbook, EIDOLONS, White Pine Press.

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