A Collective Celebration of the Beauty Around Us

Endorsements

  • Penn Kemp and Mary McDonald’s “River Revery” is a stunning multimedia mélange – words, music and images that heighten already rich artistry into a wondrous sensory experience! 

    - Bill Arnott, Author, Poet, Songwriter

  • “OMG…..am blown away once again by Penn’s poignant and powerful poem that is even more enhanced by Mary McDonald’s stunningly beautiful animation. MAGICAL.”

    - Aliyana Ruekberg

  • “To the western world, the word Thames is a mystery that even a sage cannot solve. In the past, places like the routes of rivers were known to everybody. And language always held a clue, especially in oral culture. The River Thames of London, England leads us back to Sanskrit….To Penn Kemp and the people of Southern Ontario, it reminds them of their heritage in ‘stealing’ a name for their beautiful home.

    Poetry also refreshes the dream. So sit by the trees of your Carolinian Forest and make a wish. I will join you in this. Wishes lead to hope. Hope leads to action. So let’s hope that the waters of River Revery can feed the forests of blue ash, Fraxinus quadrangulata, whose blue dye was once used in the popcorn wedding baskets for the First Nations of Canada. Let us all wish and hope together that we can protect this environment for Ula and Kai. Amen.”

    - Diana B. Beresford-Kroeger, Author of The Global Forest

River Revery – A Celebration of Beauty

A view from the heart

A view of the forks of the river

Penn Kemp profile picture Author photo by Mary McDonald

Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972), a “poetic El Niño”, and a “one-woman literary industry”. She was London’s inaugural Poet Laureate (2010-13) and Western University’s Writer-in-Residence (2009-10). Chosen as the League of Canadian Poets’ Spoken Word Artist (2015), Kemp has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with thirty books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. In 2018, she is writer-in-residence at Caetani Cultural Centre, Vernon BC.

New poetry books in 2018 are Local Heroes (Insomniac) and Fox Haunts (Aeolus House). Recent plays have been performed and published celebrating London local hero, Teresa Harris. Quattro Books has published her poetry, Barbaric Cultural Practice, and an anthology, Jack Layton: Art in Action.

Mary McDonald multimedia artist profile picture

Artist photo by Kate McDonald

Mary McDonald  writer and multimedia artist, lives and works in London. Mary is committed to telling stories in ways that mix the arts. Her work has appeared in such publications as The New Quarterly and Ocassus, and her play, “13 inches of closet space” was produced as part of the 2017 London One Act Festival. Mary’s multimedia animation exhibit, “Reveries and Truths”, was featured at The Arts Project as part of the  2018 Visual Fringe festival. Also in 2018, Mary launched an Augmented Reality art and multimedia animation exhibit, The Dream Life of Teresa Harris, in collaboration with Penn Kemp. This was for the launch of Penn’s Local Heroes (Insomniac Press) at Museum London and in July for a week-long exhibit at Eldon House Heritage Site. Mary McDonald is currently pursuing her Master’s of Educational Technology through UBC.

River Revery is coming image of leaf partially covered with ice crystals

London Arts Council logo

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