Patricia Kathleen Page, (23 November 1916 – 14 January 2010) was a Canadian poet, though the citation as she was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada 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.

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 Art Gallery of Ontario 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, and the South Pacific to celebrate the International Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. Her father was Lionel Frank Page, a Canadian Army 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. A year in England when she was 17 opened her eyes to galleries, ballets and concerts.

Page "later moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, where she worked as a shop assistant and radio actress during the late 1930s." In 1941, she moved to Montreal and came into contact with the Montreal Group of poets, which included A. M. Klein and F. R. Scott.

She became a founding member of Patrick Anderson's Preview magazine in 1942,

Later she became a scriptwriter at Canada's National Film Board, where she met W. Arthur Irwin, a former editor of Maclean's magazine, whom she married in 1950.

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."

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 [in] between."

Recognition

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 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."

In 2006, she was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She held honorary 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). 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. "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." 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. and was a finalist for the 2013 Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction.

P. K. Page Founders' Award for Poetry

A $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!"

  • 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. [as Judith Cape] – 1944