In Remembrance: PK Page
PK Page passed away on Thursday morning in her Victoria home at the age of 93. The BC Book Prizes would like to extend our condolences to PK Page’s family and friends. We are honoured to have shared a bit of her history; PK Page won the innaugural Lieutenant Governor’s Prize for Literary Excellence in 2004.
“Balance is inner, centred in the keep,” writes P. K. Page in her poem, “The Castle.” Her own keep is prodigious and ever growing. She shapes the balances within this keep, its secluded corners, its darkness and radiance, the might of a tree, children playing. In her keep the ethereal meets the raw, friendship confronts memory, the sources of creativity engage the natural world, responsibility encounters play and each brings the other into balance. For forty years in British Columbia she has generously shared her experiences and experiments in that keep with her fellow writers, especially oncoming generations of new writers, and with her readers. Her prose, by turns serious, sensual and funny, always thoughtful, bringing us insight into the human mind and into the life of nations, together with her tough, witty, and passionate poetry, make her the natural recipient of this inaugural Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence. — Jury member George Szanto, 2004
