A poetry reading on Gabriola Island will benefit a trust fund dedicated to supporting poets and poetry in Canada.
The League of Canadian Poets announced the PK Page Trust Fund with series of benefit readings to honour her and initiate the fund.
“PK was one of our own and we want to remember her,” said Susan McMaster, league president. “She was a great poet and a great mentor. We hope this new fund will grow into a large endowment that allows the league to support the art and craft of poetry in a number of ways that would have pleased her.”
Born in 1916, Page’s artistic and poetic career spanned more than five decades, ending only with her death in 2010. She was made a Life Member of the League in 1987.
“PK meant a great deal to me personally, for her connection across poetic generations and with English poetry, for her patrician ways and her bright, agile mind,” said past president DC Reid.
“Her book of glosas, Hologram, and her encouragement resulted in an outpouring of this Spanish form from Canadian poets, firmly establishing a new stream in Canadian formalist poetry.”
In 2000, Page was granted a special honour when the United Nations chose her glosa Planet Earth for its Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry reading series. The poem — which was the one for which she wanted to be remembered — was read at locations around the globe considered ‘international ground,’ including the United Nations, Mount Everest and Antarctica.
A benefit reading for the PK Page Trust Fund will be held Nov. 6, 2-4 p.m., at Mad Rona’s Coffee Bar, 500 North Rd.
Featuring League member poets Sandy Shreve and Heidi Greco, the event will open with a reading of Planet Earth, read by Gabriola’s Naomi Beth Wakan.
Other local poets will have a chance to read a favourite Page poem by contacting Janet Vickers at janetvickers@shaw.ca.
Suggested donation at the door is $5. All money collected will go to the PK Page Trust Fund.
