Planet Earth: Poems Selected and New

by P.K. Page

The title of this book is taken from Page's poem, `Planet Earth', which was chosen by the United Nations in 2000 for their celebratory program Year of Dialogue among Civilizations. Now poet and essayist Eric Ormsby, with Page's input, has selected the best of Page's poems originally collected in the two volumes of The Hidden Room (Porcupine's Quill, 1997). Page has also contributed to Planet Earth a small number of very recent poems. Ormsby has written a wonderful introduction to this new selection; he hastens to point out that deciding what to include was a most difficult process because there was so much to choose from. He goes on to `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.'

Genres: Poetry

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 30, 2002

About the author

Patricia Kathleen Page, CC, OBC, FRSC, commonly known as P. K. Page, was a Canadian poet. She was born in Swanage, Dorset, England and moved with her family to Canada in 1919. She spent the last years of her life in Victoria, British Columbia. P.K. Page was an author of many published books of poetry, fiction, travel diaries, essays and children's books. Her poems were translated into other languages. By special resolution of the United Nations, in 2001 her 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, having exhibited her work 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.

Reviews

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is the writers duty to describe
freely, exactly.Nothing else will do
P78

Undeniably a poet of precision and skill
PKP might be formidable
If not for her sly humour and genuine glee
in turning words to her purpose, to see
The rock beneath the rock
The sweet surprises and occasional shock

It was sweet to be young and stupid
but I don't think I'll try old and clueless
I'm doing my time as its doing me
rolling shit in the direction of the sun.
P75