Web posted on March 15, 2004

The organizers of The Cafe at the End of the Universe Reading Series are excited to announce a special celebration for World Poetry Day which takes place on Sunday March 21. The celebration will take place at The Metcalfe Inn in Elora at 7:00pm on Sunday the 21st.

Our very special feature poet/performer will be Penn Kemp, one of Canada's best known and prolific writers. As performer and playwright, sound artist Penn performs in arts festivals and conferences around the world, giving readings and workshops, most recently throughout Brazil in 2003. A prolific artist, she has to date had six plays produced and eight CD's. Penn is one of Canada's most active performance poets, with Canada's first poetry CD-ROM, On Our Own Spoke to her credit: "a delight for the ear and to the eye". She performs in ongoing collaboration with actors, poets and jazz musicians. Since her first sound/concrete book was published in 1972, Penn has been pushing text and aural boundaries, often in participatory performance. Penn's video poem, "Re:Solution", won for best performance (The Voice Award), Vancouver Videopoem Festival, 2001. Among her publications are twenty books of poetry and drama as well as essays and fiction.

Rattapallax Press has invited Penn back to perform in Brazil and Chile, as Canada's representative to the conferences celebrating Pablo Neruda's centenary. She uses speech to create a form with primal power and appeal. Her work points to an exciting new sonic form evolving between speech and music.

To celebrate the Centenary of the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, this reading is dedicated to his work.

Penn will also be performing her celebrated "Poem for Peace in Two Voices" accompanied by two translators, as the poem has been translated into many languages.

In addition, the Cafe is pleased to present Daniel Kolos as our other feature poet. Born in Hungary, educated in rural Pennsylvania, Daniel studied poetry at the University of Pennsylvania. Daniel went on to study ancient Egyptian language and literature (MA, University of Toronto, 1975), including 'thought couplets' as the basic form of Egyptian poetry. He wrote prose and drama upon arrival in Toronto as a freelance broadcaster for CBC Radio, and became a member ACTRA Writers Guild he was nominated for Best Writer: Radio Drama in 1983.

Daniel helped to form Words Aloud, a poetry cooperative in the Grey-Bruce region in 1997. In 2000, he organized the Worlds in Bloom poetry festival at Stonyground, and involved local poets in the World Poetry Day for the past two years with coordinated poetry readings around the world on March 21st. His stories and poems have appeared in Mosaic (Durham, Ontario) since 1990. The 2003 Anthology of The Poetry Tribe in Michigan carry three of Daniel's poems, and one poem appears in the premier issue of Quills, a new literary magazine entirely devoted to Canadian poetry, Winter 2003/4.

His first poetry book, "Slipped Out" was recently published by Pendas Productions of London, Ontario. He has read his poetry extensively in Toronto, including featured readings at Words in Concert (1997, 1998) The Idyll Pub Reading Series (2002) The Art Pub (August, 2003 February 2004), and at the Durham Art Gallery.

As always, there will be an open mic portion to the evening. There is no cover charge and excellent food and drink are available.

The organizers of The Cafe at the End of the Universe Reading Series are grateful to The League of Canadian Poets, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for their assistance with this presentation. In addition, thanks to UNESCO, the United Nations and the Neruda Foundation for their support.

For more information about this reading or The Cafe at the End of the Universe Reading Series, contact Gordon Gilhuly at (519) 741-8531 or ggilhuly@rogers.com

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