The League of Canadian Poets announces the PK Page Trust Fund in support of poets and poetry in Canada. A series of benefit readings will honour her and initiate the fund.

“PK was one of our own and we want to remember her,” says League President Susan McMaster. “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, PK 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.

After many years of fundraising by the League’s national Council, members and supporters, the P.K. Page Fund is set to open for a first round of applications in summer 2021. The League looks forward to providing annual mentorship opportunities that will support the careers of emerging and established poets.

“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. 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, PK, as she was known to her friends, 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. It is the United Nations poem of the planet Earth.