Actually, PK Page does have an enviable position in Canadian poetry,
although, like many Canadian poets, she's not that well known outside of
the country. But her weork ahs appeared in some UK anthologies of poetry by
women, & maybe just of poetry by anyone. Although Fran;s right that she's
an old woman, & not really a feminist, she has written interestingly on
'women's issues' of her younger time, & of aging, & of many things. The
volume from which her poems comes, a collection of glosa, was well enough
received in the mainstream press to get her a long interview on CBC radio's
morning program. I happily teach some of her best poems, especially placing
them in their time (I mean a powerful symbolic representation of the
obsessive passions of secretaries in the forties, for example).
But, indeed, there have been many many poets since she achieved some
notice, & I could easily argue that many of them have written poems that
might fit the UN ideal. Or would, from our point of iew, but (as stated
earlier) maybe not theirs.
On the other had, I think Candice is really on the button to point to the
possibility of a non-enligh language poem as something that might be of
much more world interest than anyone has taken into account (although
again, how many translations into how manay languages would be 'proper' for
whatever poem was chosen?).
Would Neruda, still a wonderful possibility, not be chosen precisely
because of his politics?
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
surely when they fell
it was into grace
bpNichol
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