Patricia Kathleen Page, (23 November 1916 – 14 January 2010) was a Canadian poet,Peter Scowen
P.K. Page dies at age 93
''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'', 14 January 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2010. though the citation as she was inducted as a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...

reads "poet, novelist, script writer, playwright, essayist, journalist, librettist, teacher and artist." She was the author of more than 30 published books that include poetry, fiction, travel diaries, essays, children's books, and an autobiography.Rosemary Sullivan,
"The Constant Writer: P.K. Page Remembered"
CBC News, 15 January 2010, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Web, 11 April 2011. As a visual artist, she exhibited her work as P.K. Irwin at a number of venues in Canada and abroad. Her works are in the permanent collections of the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, the

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and the Burnaby Art Gallery. By special resolution of the United Nations, in 2001 Page's poem "Planet Earth" was read simultaneously in New York, the

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

, and the South Pacific to celebrate the International Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations.

Life

P.K. Page was born in

Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the Unit ...

, Dorset, England, and moved with her family to Canada in 1919. Page's parents moved with her to

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or Hart (deer), hart, and a female is called a doe or hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Ir ...

, Alberta in 1919, when she was only 3, and later to

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

and

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

.P. K. Page biography
University of Calgary. Retrieved 16 January 2010. Her father was Lionel Frank Page, a

Canadian Army The Canadian Army () is the command (military formation), command responsible for the operational readiness of the conventional ground forces of the Canadian Armed Forces. It maintains regular forces units at bases across Canada, and is also re ...

officer. Page said her parents were creative, encouraging non-conformists who loved the arts, recited poetry and read to her. She credited her early interest in poetry to the rhythms she unconsciously imbibed as a child.Grania Litwin
"At 87, P.K. Page is moving ahead"
''Victoria Times Colonist'', 25 May 2004. Retrieved 16 January 2010. A year in England when she was 17 opened her eyes to galleries, ballets and concerts. Page "later moved to

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John () is a port#seaport, seaport city located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. It is Canada's oldest Municipal corporation, incorporated city, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign ...

, where she worked as a shop assistant and radio actress during the late 1930s."P.K. Page
" eNotes.com, Web, 11 April 2011. In 1941 Page moved to

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

and came into contact with the

Montreal Group The Montreal Group, sometimes referred to as the McGill Group or McGill Movement,Dean Irvine,Montreal Group" ''Oxford Companion to Canadian History''. Answers.com, Web, March 25, 2011. was a circle of Canadian modernist writers formed in the mid-192 ...

of poets, which included A. M. Klein and F. R. Scott. She became a founding member of Patrick Anderson's ''Preview'' magazine in 1942, and of its successor, '' Northern Review,'' in 1945. Some of her poetry appeared in the

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

anthology, ''Unit of Five,'' in 1944, along with poems by

Louis Dudek Louis Dudek, (February 6, 1918 – March 23, 2001) was a Canadian poet, academic, and publisher known for his role in defining Modernism in poetry, and for his literary criticism. He was the author of over two dozen books. In ''A Digital Hist ...

Ronald Hambleton Ronald Hambleton (June 9, 1917 – April 10, 2015) was an English-born Canadian broadcaster and music critic. Biography Hambleton was born on June 9, 1917, in Preston, Lancashire, England. He came to Vancouver at 7. He left school in his mid-te ...

Raymond Souster Raymond Holmes Souster (January 15, 1921 – October 19, 2012) was a Canadian poet whose writing career spanned over 70 years. More than 50 volumes of his own poetry were published during his lifetime, and he edited or co-edited a dozen volumes ...

, and

James Wreford Prof James Wreford Watson FRSE FRSC IBG LLD (February 8, 1915 – September 18, 1990) was a Scottish Canadian geographer and cartographer, who served as the Chief Geographer of Canada and the first president of the Canadian Association of G ...

. In 1944 she published a romantic novel, ''The Sun and the Moon,'' under the pseudonym Judith Cape. The novel was reprinted in 1973, along with some of her short stories from the 1940s, as ''The Sun and the Moon and Other Fictions''. Later she became a scriptwriter at Canada's

National Film Board The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

, where she met W. Arthur Irwin, a former editor of

Maclean's ''Maclean's'' is a Canadian magazine founded in 1905 which reports on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, trends and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian ...

magazine, whom she married in 1950. Following her marriage, "Page devoted her time to writing the poetry collection ''The Metal and the Flower'' (1954), for which she received a

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

." Page travelled with her husband on his diplomatic postings to Australia,

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

. In Brazil and Mexico, not hearing the rhythms of spoken English, she said, "I had a long dry spell, so I started painting and keeping a journal," published as ''Brazilian Journal'' and illustrated with her own paintings. She began writing poetry again following her return to Canada in the mid-1960s. Her visual art, under her married name as P. K. Irwin, is in galleries and private collections, including the

in Ottawa.Grania Litwin and Jim Gibson
"Writer's skill spanned the arts"
'' Victoria Times Colonist'', 15 January 2010, p. D1. Retrieved 15 January 2010. She remained an active cultural collaborator and wrote steadily throughout the last years of her life in Oak Bay, British Columbia.

Writing

Page's career can be divided into two periods: the first being the 1940s and 1950s, and the second starting with her return to Canada in the 1960s. Her early poems "were inward-looking, imaginary biographies," which "rely heavily on suggestive imagery and the detailed depiction of concrete situations to express social concerns and transcendental themes ... such poems as 'The Stenographers' and 'The Landlady' focus on isolated individuals who futilely search for meaning and a sense of belonging. 'Photos of a Salt Mine' considered one of Page's best early poems, examines how art both conceals and reveals reality."

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, ''Fearful Symmetr ...

wrote about her 1954 volume, ''The Metal and the Flower'', that "if there is anything such as 'pure poetry,' this must be it: a lively mind seizing on almost any experience and turning it into witty verse.... Miss Page's work has a competent elegance about it that makes even the undistinguished poems still satisfying to look at."Northrop Frye,
Letters in Canada – 1954
" ''The Bush Garden'' (Toronto: Anansi), 1971, 39–40. Her later works showed "a new austerity in form and a reduction in the number of images presented." As well, there is a difference in type of image: "her later poems are often set abroad and suggest a path of liberation for the isolated, alienated individual.... Such poems as 'Bark Drawing' and 'Cook's Mountains' contain images outside the self as does 'Cry Ararat!' — a poem concerning the reconciliation of internal and external worlds, in which Mount Ararat symbolizes a place of rest nbetween." Critic George Woodcock has said that Page's "most recent poems are more sharply and intensely visual than ever in their sensuous evocation of shape and color and space; their imagery takes us magically beyond any ordinary seeing into a realm of imagining in which the normal world is shaken like a vast kaleidoscope and revealed in unexpected and luminous relationships." Page's 1972 apocalyptic tale of climate change, ''Unless the Eye Catch Fire'', appeared in the literary journal ''The Malahat Review'' in the late 1970s and, in 1981, as the only prose piece in her poetry collection ''Evening Dance of the Grey Flies''. Created later as a one-woman play by actor Joy Coghill and flautist Robert Cram at the Banff Centre for the Arts, it was performed in 1994 as part of the British Empire Games Festival in Victoria, B.C. and, in 2002, at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa, and Trent University. A performance directed by David Duke was part of the Vancouver International Writers Festival in October 2009. Composer Gavin Bryers wrote music for a film version of Page's story by Anna Tchermakova, produced by Hilary Jones-Farrow for CBC Television. The June 1999 concert of Bryers' score, presented by The May Street Group and CBC Radio Two, was recorded for future broadcast.

Recognition

Page won the Governor General's Award in

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

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 The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...

and was promoted to Companion of the Order in 1998. In 2003, she was made a member of the Order of British Columbia. BC Lt. Gov. Iona Campagnolo awarded her the first Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2004, calling Page "a true Renaissance woman." Page was also the recipient of the 2004 Terasen Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the

. She held honorary degrees from

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay, British Columbia, Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1903 as Victoria College, British Columbia, Victoria Col ...

(1985),

University of Calgary {{Infobox university , name = University of Calgary , image = University of Calgary coat of arms without motto scroll.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms , former ...

(1989),

University of Guelph The University of Guelph (abbreviated U of G) is a comprehensive Public university, public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College (1874), the MacDonald I ...

(1990),

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...

(1990),

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

(1998),

University of Winnipeg The University of Winnipeg (UWinnipeg, UW, or U of W) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It offers undergraduate programs in art, business, economics, education, science and applied health as well as graduate progra ...

(2001),

Trent University Trent University is a public liberal arts university in Peterborough, Ontario, with a satellite campus in Oshawa, which serves the Regional Municipality of Durham. Founded in 1964, the university is known for its Oxbridge college system, sma ...

(2004) and the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

(2005). Artworks by Mimmo Paladino inspired by and incorporating her poetry were installed with Page's calligraphy text panels for exhibits in Toronto (Istituto Italiano di Cultura/Italian Government Cultural Office, October 1998), in Victoria, B.C. (Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, October 1999) and in Winnipeg (Winnipeg Art Gallery, January 2000). Several of Page's poems have been translated into languages other than English. A symposium on her work, "Extraordinary Presence: The Worlds of P.K. Page", was held in 2002 at Trent University. Page was a "true Canadian literary and artistic icon," according to B.C.

Premier Premier is a title for the head of government in central governments, state governments and local governments of some countries. A second in command to a premier is designated as a deputy premier. A premier will normally be a head of govern ...

Gordon Campbell."The Passing of P. K. Page"
, Premier's Statement, 14 January 2010. Retrieved 16 January 2010. "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." The

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...

dedicated a 38-minute documentary to her career (''Still Waters'', directed by Montrealer Donald Winkler),
Still Waters: The Poetry of P.K. Page
', NFB documentary. Retrieved 15 January 2010. In a special issue of ''The Malahat Review'' about Page and her work, Winkler writes about filming Page for the documentary segment on her childhood. ''Coal and Roses'', her last collection, was posthumously shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize. ''Journey with No Maps'', a biography of Page by Sandra Djwa, was published in late 2012Book
Biography reviewed: Joan Givner, "Notre Grande Dame," ''BC BookWorld'', Winter 2012–2013, p. 23 and was a finalist for the 2013 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.Five short-listed titles on Canadian Press wire service, "Charles Taylor Finalists Include Past Winner," ''Victoria News Daily'', 10 January 2013, p. 7.

P. K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry

A $1,000 poetry prize is awarded annually by the '' Malahat Review'' in Page's name.New Award honours renowned poet P. K. Page"
Press release, University of Victoria, 16 November 2006. Retrieved 2010-001-16. Its editor, Marilyn Bowering, said, " eraccomplishments 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''!"

Works

Poetry

* ''Unit of five: Louis Dudek, Ronald Hambleton, P.K. Page, Raymond Souster, James Wreford''. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1944.P.K. Page: Publications
" Canadian Poetry Online, Web, 24 April 2011. * ''As ten, as twenty''. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1946. * ''The Metal and the Flower''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1954. * '' Cook's Mountains'' – 1967 * ''Cry Ararat!: poems new and selected''. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1967. * ''P.K. Page: Poems Selected and New''. Toronto: Anansi, 1974. * ''Planes: poems''. Toronto: Seripress, 1975 (with artist Doyle, Mike, 1928–). (limited edition of 50 numbered copies, signed by author and artist) * ''Five Poems''. Toronto: League of Canadian Poets, 1980. * ''Evening Dance of the Grey Flies''. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1981. . * ''The Glass Air: poems selected and new''. Toronto: Oxford University Press, (1985, 1991). , . * ''Two Poems''. Comox, B.C.: Nemo Press. 1988. (Limited edition of 150 copies.) * ''Hologram: a Book of Glosas''. London, Ont.: Brick Books, 1994. . (Contains poems Hologram, The Gold Sun, Autumn, Poor Bird, Inebriate, In Memoriam, Presences, Planet Earth, Love's Pavilion, Alone, A Bagatelle, Exile, The Answer, The End.) * ''The Hidden Room, Vol. 1''. Erin, Ont.: The Porcupine's Quill, 1997. . * ''The Hidden Room, Vol. 2''. Erin, Ont.: The Porcupine's Quill, 1997. . * ''Alphabetical''. Published for the Hawthorne Society. Victoria, B.C.: Reference West, 1998. . * ''Cosmologies''. Victoria, B.C.: Poppy Press, 2000. . (Limited edition boxed set of 500 copies with ''Alphabetical'', .) * ''And Once More Saw the Stars''. – 2001 * ''Schizophrenic''. * ''This Heavy Craft'' * ''Planet Earth: poems selected and new''. Edited and with an introduction by Eric Ormsby. Erin, Ont.: Porcupine's Quill, 2002. * ''Hand Luggage: A Memoir in Verse''. Erin, Ont.: Porcupine's Quill, 2006. . *''Coal and Roses'.' – 2009 (shortlisted for the 2010 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize) *''The Golden Lilies – Poems by PK Page''. – 2009 *''Cullen''. Outlaw Editions, 2009. *''Single Traveller''

Prose

* ''The Sun and the Moon''. s Judith Cape– 1944 * ''The Sun and the Moon and Other Fictions''. Toronto: Anansi, 1973. (contents: The Sun and the Moon, The Neighbour, The Green Bird, The Woman, The Lord's Plan, Miracles, As One Remembers a Dream, George, The Glass Box) * ''To Say the Least: Canadian Poets from A to Z''. Edited and introduced by P.K. Page. Toronto: Press Porcépic, 1979. * ''Brazilian Journal''. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1988. . * ''A Kind of Fiction''. Erin, Ont.: Porcupine's Quill, 2001. . (Contents include "Unless the Eye Catch Fire.") * ''The Filled Pen: selected non-fiction''. Edited by Zailig Pollock. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007. . * ''Up on the Roof''. Erin, Ont.: Porcupine's Quill, 2007. . * ''You Are Here''. Sidney, B.C.: Hedgerow Press, 2008. .

Children's books

* ''A Flask of Sea Water''. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989. Illustrated by Lazlo Gal. * ''The Travelling Musicians''. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 1991. Illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton. (Adaptation of '' The Musicians of Bremen''.) * ''The Goat that Flew''. Victoria, B.C.: Beach Holme, 1993. Illustrated by Marika Gal. (Sequel to ''A Flask of Sea Water''; second of the trilogy completed by ''The Sky Tree''.) * ''A Grain of Sand''. (2003) * ''A Brazilian Alphabet for the Young Reader''. (2005) * ''Jake, the Baker, Makes a Cake''. (2008) * ''The Old Woman and the Hen''. (2008) * ''There Once Was a Camel''. Victoria, B.C.: Ekstasis Editions, 2008. Illustrated by Kristi Bridgeman. * ''The Sky Tree: A Trilogy of Fables''. Lantzville, B.C.: Oolichan Books, 2009. Illustrated by Kristi Bridgeman. . * ''Uirapurú: Based on a Brazilian Legend''. Fernie, B.C.: Oolichan Books, 2010. Illustrated by Kristi Bridgeman. .

References

External links

Griffin Poetry Prize biography

Griffin Poetry Prize readings, including video clips

Watch ''Still Waters: The Poetry of P.K. Page''
a 1990

documentary
Canadian Poetry Online: P.K. Page
– Biography and six poems (The After Rain, Autumn, This Heavy Craft, Deaf Mute in the Pear Tree, Single Traveller, Motel Pool)
"Poem", 1944
by P K Page about the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, by Brittany Kraus
The Galvanizing Force for her "Generation": P.K. Page's Spanish Civil War
by Jane Boyes, 2015 * Archives of P.K. Pag
(P.K. Page (Patricia Kathleen) Page fonds, R2411)
are held at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Page, P. K. 1916 births 2010 deaths 20th-century Canadian poets 21st-century Canadian poets Artists from British Columbia Canadian modernist poets 20th-century Canadian women painters 20th-century Canadian painters Canadian women poets Companions of the Order of Canada Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Governor General's Award–winning poets Members of the Order of British Columbia Naturalized citizens of Canada People from the Capital Regional District People from Swanage Poets from British Columbia 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian women artists