Penn Kemp
Penn Kemp (born 1944) is a Canadian poet, novelist, playwright, and sound poet who lives in London, Ontario. Kemp was born in Strathroy, Ontario and raised in the nearby city of London. She earned a degree in English and literature from the University of Western Ontario in 1966 and received certification as a teacher. She taught high school English in Timmins and North York, Toronto for several years and in 1988 she received an Ontario Graduate Scholarship to complete a Masters of Education degree at the University of Toronto. Poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has been celebrated  as a trailblazer since her first publication of poetry by Coach House (1972), and a “one-woman literary industry”. She was London's inaugural Poet Laureate and University of Western Ontario's Writer-in-Residence (2009-2010) as well as the League of Canadian Poets’ Spoken Word Artist, 2015. Kemp has been a keen participant in Canada's cultural life with thirty books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as several award-winning videopoems. In 1984, Penn was writer in residence for Niagara Erie Writers in New York State; for the Labrador School  Board in 1986; for Flesherton Library in 1988 and '89; and at SNDT Women's University in Mumbai in 1995. In 1994, Penn's play, "What the Ear Hears Last", was produced by Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto and, in the same year, she was featured on the CBC Radio show, "Sounding Off." In 1995 the Indian Institute of Canadian studies sponsored her tour of Mumbai colleges and universities. In 2010, Kemp became London, Ontario's first poet laureate.