It has become customary in Canada to describe P. K. Page as `distinguished', but that epithet betrays her. P. K. Page is simply too vivacious, too cunning, too elusive, to be monumentalized. She is in fact the supreme escape artist of our literature. Try to confine her in a villanelle and she scampers off into free verse. Peg her as a prose poet and she springs forth with a glosa. Categorize her as a poet who writes fiction but then note that you find very little `poet's prose' in her stories. Her characters are often ...
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It has become customary in Canada to describe P. K. Page as `distinguished', but that epithet betrays her. P. K. Page is simply too vivacious, too cunning, too elusive, to be monumentalized. She is in fact the supreme escape artist of our literature. Try to confine her in a villanelle and she scampers off into free verse. Peg her as a prose poet and she springs forth with a glosa. Categorize her as a poet who writes fiction but then note that you find very little `poet's prose' in her stories. Her characters are often incised with acid and a cruelly keen burin. She is the shrewdest of observers but at the same time she celebrates life, low and high, in all its manifestations. One of the finest and most distinctive Canadian poets, P. K. Page is no provincial. She is a citizen not merely of the world, but of the earth. Starting in Calgary in the twenties, the young P K Page discovered first horses and then the pre-Raphaelites in cheap reproductions. In the thirties it was London, then back to the Maritimes and war and the distance of accented radio broadcasts from overseas. In the forties, in Montreal, there was snow as high as a house, cocoa at Murray's on Sherbrooke Street and poems by Frank Scott and Abe Klein read aloud in rented rooms. In the fifties, marriage to Arthur Irwin and thence to Australia by steamer via Aden, Port Said and Ceylon. Kangaroos and platypus and tea with the wives of diplomats. Perth to Melbourne by train. Alice Springs, Kalgoorli and Ayers Rock. Briefly, New Guinea. Then Brazil, a pet marmoset christened B Fledermouse and drinks with Margot Fonteyn on the beach at Copacobana. From the sublime, to the ridiculous -- an honour guard of mariachis poised to greet John Diefenbaker in the shadow of Popocatepetl. The posting to Mexico was the last. Her memoir ranges from the trivial - the condition of pipes and wiring in embassy homes - to the profound, her persistent search for spiritual certainty. P. K. Page met many of the dominant figures of the twentieth century, including Nehru, DeGaulle, Mountbatten, Tito and the Kennedys. But above all, she celebrates the senses, the beauty of it all. Towards the end of a long and passionate life, Page shares in a most engaging form the highlights of a life lived to the full.
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Very good. Signed by author. 93, [3] p. Illustrations. Occasional footnotes. Towards the end of a long and passionate life, P K Page shares in a most engaging form the highlights of a life lived to the full. From Wikipedia: Patricia Kathleen Page CC OBC FRSC (November 23, 1916 January 14, 2010), commonly known as P. K. Page, was a Canadian poet. She was the author of over 30 published books: of poetry, fiction, travel diaries, essays, children's books, and an autobiography. By special resolution of the United Nations, in 2001 Page's poem "Planet Earth" was read simultaneously in New York, the Antarctic, and the South Pacific to celebrate the International Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. She was also known as a visual artist, who exhibited her work as P.K. Irwin at a number of venues in and out of Canada. Her works are in permanent collections of National Gallery of Canada and Art Gallery of Ontario. Page won the Governor General's Award in 1954 for The Metal and the Flower, and the Canadian Authors Association Award in 1985 for The Glass Air. In 1977 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion of the Order in 1998. In 2003, she was made a member of the Order of British Columbia. B.C. Lt. Gov. Iona Campagnolo awarded her the first Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2004, calling Page "a true Renaissance woman." Page's poems have been translated into other languages. A symposium on her work, "Extraordinary Presence: The Worlds of P.K. Page", was held in 2002 at Trent University. In 2006, she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She held honourary degrees from University of Victoria (1985), University of Calgary (1989), University of Guelph (1990), Simon Fraser University (1990), University of Toronto (1998), University of Winnipeg (2001), Trent University (2004) and the University of British Columbia (2005). Page was a "true Canadian literary and artistic icon, " according to B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell. "As an author, poet, teacher, scriptwriter and painter, P. K. Page was an extraordinary and varied force in promoting and developing Canadian culture. Her efforts helped to set the stage for decades of cultural growth in our nation....It is the passion of people like Patricia that forged our country s cultural and artistic identity." Her last collection, Coal and Roses, was posthumously shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. The National Film Board of Canada dedicated a 38-minute documentary to her career (Still Waters, directed by Donald Winkler. She is the subject of a new biography by Sandra Djwa that will be released in late 2012. [edit] P. K. Page Founders Award for PoetryA $1, 000 poetry prize is awarded annually by the Malahat Review in Page's name. Its editor, Marilyn Bowering, said, "[Her] accomplishments have been an inspiration to several generations of writers, " and declared that the award, called the P. K. Page Founders Award for Poetry, would formalize Page's "long association with the Malahat Review." From the back cover: "Hand Luggage, a wonderful long poem nobody else could have written, meaning the original forma as well as the autobiographical content. Hand Luggage carries a plenitude of penetrating observations and probing questiongs arising from richly varied cultural experiences frankly and lovingly examined.
