P. K. Page
By Jumi Heo
About P. K. (Patricia Kathleen) Page
• P. K. Page was born on November 23, 1916
• She was lived in Victoria, British Columbia
with her diplomat-husband, Arthur Irwin
• She was the author of the books of poetry
(As Ten as Twenty), fiction (The Sun and
the Moon), and non-fiction
• She had won the Governor General’s Award
for poetry of The Metal and the Flower
(1954)
• She was appointed a Companion of the
Order of Canada in 1999
• Because there were lots of wars happened
while she was alive, most of her poems are
gloomy and depressed
Continued...
• P. K. Page attended schools in Winnipeg,
Calgary and England
• She studied Art under Frank Schaeffer in
Brazil and Charles Seliger in New York
• She also attended the Art Students’ League
and Pratt Graphics in New York
• P. K. Page once worked as a clerk and radio
actress in Saint John, N.B.
• In Montreal, she was a filling clerk and
historical researcher
• P. K. Page was died on January 14, 2010
Single Traveller
What is this love that is my life’s companion?
Shape-changer, sometimes faceless, this
companion.
Single traveller, I wander a wasting world
awaiting the much anticipated Companion.
A trillium covered wood one April day
served as a nearly consummate companion.
A horse, two dogs, some cats, a blue macaw
each in its turn became a loyal companion.
by P. K. Page
Behind the loved embrace, a face of lightdemon or angel-lures me from my companion.
The street of love is neither wide nor narrow.
Its width depends on me and my companion.
Am I too bound and blinded by coarse wrappings
ever to know true love as my companion?
O Poet, squanderer of time and talents
why do you search for love as your Companion?
This Heavy Craft
The wax has melted
but the dream of flight
persists.
I, Icarus, though grounded
in my flesh
have one bright section in me
where a bird
night after starry night
while I’m asleep
unfolds its phantom wings
and practices.
by P. K. Page
After Rain
Its stain is everywhere.
The sharpening air
of late afternoon
is now the colour of tea.
Once-glycerined green leaves
burned by a summer sun
are brittle and ochre.
Night enters day like a thief.
And children fear that the beautiful daylight has
gone.
It is the best and the worst time.
Around a fire, everyone laughing,
brocaded curtains drawn,
nowhere-anywhere-is more safe than here.
The whole world is a cup
one could hold in one’s hand like a stone
warmed by that same summer sun.
But the dead or the near dead
are now all knucklebone.
by P. K. Page
Nothing to do. Nothing to really do.
Toast and tea are nothing.
Kettle boils dry.
Shut the night out or let it in,
it is a cat on the wrong side of the door
whichever side it is on. A black thing
with its implacable face.
To avoid it you
will tell yourself you are something,
Even though there is bounty, a full harvest
that sharp sweetness in the tea-stained air
is reserved for those who have made a straw
fine as a hair to suck it throughfine as a golden hair.
Wearing a smile or a frown
God’s face is always there.
It is up to you
if you take your wintry restlessness into the
town
Adolescence
In love they wore themselves in a green
embrace.
A silken rain fell through the spring upon them.
In the park she fed the swans and he
whittled nervously with his strange hands.
And white was mixed with all their colours
as if they drew it from the flowering trees.
At night his two finger whistle brought her
down
the waterfall stairs to his shy smile
which like an eddy, turned her round and round
lazily and slowly so her will
was nowhere-as in dreams things are and
aren’t.
by P. K. Page
Walking along avenues in the dark
street lamps sang like sopranos in their heads
with a voilence they never understood
and all their movements when they were
together
had no conclusion.
Only leaning into the question had they motion;
after they parted were savage and swift as
gulls.
Asking and asking the hostile emptiness
they were as sharp as partly sculptured stone
and all who watched, forgetting, were amazed
To see them form and fade before their eyes.
Analysis
• P. K. Page’s poem, Adolescence is implied both maturity
in humans and the periods of development of teenagers
• Its poetic devices are mostly used by personification,
symbolism, alliteration, and internal rhyme
• For instance:
• “And white was mixed with all their colours as if they
drew it from the flowering trees.”
• “...turned her round and round lazily and slowly so her
will...”
• “...they were as sharp as partly sculptured stone and all...”
• All of these poetic terms are emphasized the poem’s
theme; and the theme can be its title itself-Adolescence,
or maturity
Continued...
• The poem is basically about the relationship
between a man and woman who love each
other but their romantic love can be brokenup as well
• However, besides feeling frustration or
disappointment of failure, experiencing the
relationship bring the realization of their
interaction later on, which impressed them
to behave more mature in the future and for
the next possible relationship
Thought-provoking
Questions
• By reading the poem, Adolescence, which
line is the most impressive or makes sense
to you?
• As the poem depicted, have you learned
anything through the relationship with your
boyfriend/girlfriend?
• Do you think P. K. Page is succeeded with
her poem, Adolescence, to describe what
she really meant?
Planet Earth
by P. K. Page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWFTFE8Icf0
Planet Earth has been selected to be part of a
United Nations program to foster dialogue among
nations, involving readings in countries around the
world and possibly from Alpha, the new international
space station
Bibliography
• http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/arts/photos/2010/01/15/a
rts-pk-page-hedgerow-584.jpg
• http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals/uploads/goldstrea
m/.DIR288/PK_Page01_Dec_0106_061201.jpg
• http://www.pkpage.ca/index.html
• http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/page/poems.ht
m
• http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/aboutauthors.html#pa
ge
• http://www.ecospherics.net/pages/PagePlanetEarth.html
• http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2004/9/25/195959/088