The League of Canadian Poets : Lifetime Achievement, Penn Kemp : Life Member, Gary Barwin

Congratulations to above/ground press author Penn Kemp (author of the recent Lives of Dead Poets), for receiving this year's Lifetime Achievement Award through The League of Canadian Poets! And to Gary Barwin (author of eight titles through above/ground press, most recently MY STRUGGLE WITH NOUNS), for receiving this year's Life Membership! Hooray! As the website for The League of Canadian Poets offers:

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”. The League of Canadian Poets has honored her with the Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award  (2025),  as Spoken Word Artist of the year (2015), as a foremother of Canadian Poetry, and Life Member. Penn has long been a keen participant/activist in Canada’s cultural life, with more than thirty books of poetry, prose and drama; seven plays and ten CDs produced as well as award-winning videopoems. She was London's inaugural Poet Laureate (2010-13) and Western University’s Writer-in-Residence (2009-10). Her project was the DVD, Luminous Entrance: A Sound Opera for Climate Change Action, performed at Aeolian Hall, London. Her other Sound Operas have been performed there and at venues across Canada. She has been writer-in-residence at universities throughout India and Brazil with her work widely translated. Her “poem for peace in many voices”, for instance, is out in 136 languages. Her many collaborations with artists are up on Youtube and River Revery. Out now is POEMS IN RESPONSE TO PERIL, an anthology for Ukraine. Penn’s sound poetry, INCREMENTALLY, is up as e-book and album. New collections in 2025 are available through Silver Bow Publishing and above/ground press. Penn is active across the web on her website; on Facebook, X, and Instagram; on her blog; on Substack; and on Soundcloud.

The award selection committee writes:

Penn’s contributions to community are wildly impressive and undeniable. The tendrils of her devotion to poetry and literature not only span decades, but extend across mediums, forms, and the country. Directly or indirectly, so many of us have benefited from Penn’s contributions to our literary landscape.

Over a career spanning six decades, London ON poet Penn Kemp has done it all: poetry in both voice and print, editing anthologies, publishing, mentoring countless young writers, writing for theatre and sound operas, extensive collaborative and community engagements, and promoting poetry in all its forms. As important as her poetry, and integral to it, is her activism and commitment to social justice. Translated into multiple languages and performed around the world, Penn’s poetry addresses peace and justice, environmental activism, domestic violence and a range of other social and political concerns.  With books and multi-media projects published as early as 1972 and as recent as, well, yesterday, Penn is more than deserving of this celebration of a lifetime very full of achievement.

On winning the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award, Penn writes:

To be the inaugural winner of the League's new Lifetime Achievement Award is a profound honour, given the wealth of senior poets across Canada. Throughout sixty years of writing and publishing, poetry has been my lifeline.  But there is so much more to explore! At eighty, I feel at the beginning of all that poetry can offer... I still stare daily at the blank page until words unfurl. In accepting this award, I'd also like to pay tribute to our elder poets, for whom this ongoing award is so pertinent. A deep bow to the League for supporting poetry in Canada over the decades, and on.

Gary Barwin is a writer, musician and multimedia artist and the author of 34 books including Scandal at the Alphorn Factory: New and Selected Short Fiction 2024-1984 and, with Lillian Allen and Gregory Betts, Muttertongue: what is a work in utter space. His national bestselling novel Yiddish for Pirates which won the Leacock Medal and the Canadian Jewish Literary Award, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award and the Giller Prize and was longlisted for Canada Reads. His last novel, Nothing the Same, Everything Haunted won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award and was the Hamilton Reads choice for 2023-2024. His last poetry collection, The Most Charming Creatures also won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award. His most recent novel, The Comedian’s Book of the Dead will be published in 2026. His art and media works have been exhibited internationally.

His poetry installation, The Ambitious Sky was projected on a five-storey wall in Hamilton in February 2025, an interactive multimedia poetry exhibition (created with Elee Kraljii Gardiner) was exhibited at Massy Arts (Vancouver) in Fall 2024, and Bird Fiction, and an interactive multimedia work (with Sarah Imrisek) was featured in Hamilton Arts Week in June 2025.

Known for his dynamic and engaging performances, Barwin has given hundreds of readings and multimedia poetry presentations (with live music, interactive computer systems, and/or projections) in Canada and internationally. He lives in Hamilton, Ontario and at garybarwin.com