Sarasvati Scapes
London: Pendas Productions, 2001
ISBN 0-92082-042-5
C$20.00 paperback

Saravasti Scapes is both a small book (69 pages) and a CD by poets Penn Kemp and Angela Hryniuk about their experiences on pilgrimages to India . It is written in both prose—at once incisive, riveting and profound, with poetry both subtle and philosophical by both poets.

Penn and Angela are well known poets. Penn has been writing poetry and producing what she calls sound poetry in which poets voices intermingle or there are instrumental or song elements such as in this CD since the early 80s. She has also had 20 books of poetry published and five plays produced, as well as numerous CD’s and essays.

In 1996 she was invited to go to Mumbai to give soundings workshops and performances through the Indian Institute of Canadian Studies and in December of 2000 she did a pilgrimage under the tutelage of Tibetan Buddhist teacher Zasep Tulku Rimproche to northern India to various sacred Buddhist sites.

Angela has been the guest editor of Capilano Review, co-editor of Lip, Jag, Island and Writing and has had two books published—Walking Inside, and a book of poetry called No Visible Scars, as well as having her poetry published in several esteemed literary magazines and anthologies. Now she is among other things the President of her Tibetan Buddhist Centre and is committed to anti-racist and anti-sexist writing and community work where she lives in BC, where she is doing an interdisciplinary Masters at Simon Fraser University.

In 1996 and 1998 she traveled to India to study Buddhism with the Dalai Lama and had the same guide as Penn had later in 2000, Rimproche, on her pilgrimage. The two writers decided they would collaborate on this book and sound poem giving their insights and impressions on India and their experience there as well as their insights into Tibetan Buddhism.

India is No Land
for the Myopic

It confirms our
worst fears

That things are not
what they seem

India is a lurid
purple passage

alluring tourists
to false security

Here nothing is safe

there are holes
wells to drop down

over the edge of
knowing into

being

India is no land
for the myopic

Penn and Angela are not among the myopic. They see and describe both the sublime and the grotesque of India. The washing of a corpse to be placed on a funeral pyre at Benares, the enchantment of the Himalayas, the intensity of experience which is India, both exquisite and repulsive. The precepts and teachings of Buddhism are brought into the writing and pondered by both poets.

Kora

The devout walk the long, pebbled trail which skirts the mountainside around the Dalai Lama’s residence . Circumambulation is an act of kora, an important Tibetan ritual practice. Sacred places such as stupas, monasteries, and the residences of the highest lamas are always circled. A full circle is considered be a complete offering of devotion in itself. This kind of meditation suits a restless heart: a brisk walk in a sacred place after breakfast.

Tibetans believe that the prayers for peace are disseminated by the wind and have strung lungta everywhere from tree to rooftop to electrical pole. Wind horses canter up the mountain carrying the prayers to the world.

Rounding the next corner, Barbara and I step off the map into an Air India poster. The high Himalayas are the wall opposite us like an illusion. The snow-capped peaks waver in thin air, almost translucent.

So if one is interested in learning what is India really like, what is Buddhism about as practiced by the Tibetans of northern India and if one is interested in reading some powerful yet beautiful poetry and prose about the pilgrimages of two of Canada’s leading poets, Saravasti Scapes is a most stimulating and satisfying read or listen

Penn Kemp has collaborated on a very powerful book with the help of poet and writer Angela Hyrniuk about their experiences on similar but separate pilgrimages to sacred Buddhist sites in Northern India The book/CD is both mesmerizing and profound.

Donna Bamford is a part-time freelance journalist, EFL teacher, struggling creative writer, world traveler, and would-be actress. She resides currently in London, Ontario though she has also lived in London, England, Paris, Athens and India and has traveled in Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal as well as most of the countries in Europe. Despite the travel she still calls Toronto home. She has an Honours BA in English from the University of Toronto and speaks French fluently as well as passable Italian and German. Her poetry and essays have been published in a number of online magazines and a few print magazines such as Qwerty, Bywords, Ascent, Ygdrasil, Great Works, Scriberazone, 7:24, The Mag, Another Toronto Quarterly, Scrivener’s Pen, Tryst, and The Globe and Mail.