***
P.K. Page var poet, prosaförfattare och bildkonstnär. Hon föddes i Dorset, England 1916. Med lämnade England 1919 med sin familj och de bosatte sig i Red Deer, Alberta. Hon utbildade sig i Calgary och Winnipeg och studerade senare konst i Brasilien och New York. I slutet av 1930-talet bodde hon en kort stund i Saint John, New Brunswick; i början av 1940-talet flyttade hon till Montreal och arbetade som arkivassistent och historisk forskare. Källa: University of Toronto
Det yrkesvalet tycker jag influerar hennes texter också.
My chosen landscape, by P.K. Page
(From Poetry Magazine, May 2007.)
I am a continent, a violated geography,
Yet still I journey to this naked country,
to seek a form which dances in the sand,
This is my chosen landscape.
- Gwendolyn MacEwen
Sand dunes, interminable deserts, burning winds
the night temperature bitter, a land of grit;
and floating above me stars as violent
as fire balloons, tactile and brilliant.
The all-enveloping sky, a cloak of soot.
This is my story, my brief biography.
The sum total of my experience. I travel –
a compass useless in my useless hand –
through a sandscape, a singular topography.
I am a continent, a violated geography.
Restless in all this emptiness, I seek
a fellow traveller, search for a sign –
a secret handshake, a phrase, some unusual colour
like periwinkle, for instance, or bright citrine,
but the monotony of sand persists
and nothing improbable finds entry
into the appalling platitudes of speech –
the lingua franca of everyone I meet –
in this land devoid of flags and pageantry.
Yet still I journey to this naked country,
for something in its nakedness has a beauty
so pure it is as if I thrust a knife
into my immaculate flesh and drew it forth
without a drop of blood being spilled. It is
abstract and invisible as air
this empty geometry, this ampersand
upon ampersand that leads me on
as if I were zero or minus sign,
through ‘and’ and ‘and’ and ‘and’,
to seek a form which dances in the sand
But nothing formal dances. Only the wind
blows – unchoreographed – a floating ghost
across the dunes. The sand molecular,
airborne and free, is faint with the scent
of absolute dryness, a small mineral smell.
And this almost scentlessness, this shape without shape
is a violated country, one in which
I am both exile and inhabitant
and though I would escape
this is my chosen landscape.
***
Den amerikanska poeten och kritikern Edward Hirsch kännetecknade henne, i Washington Post, som en av de "finest and most exuberant Canadian poets... a celebratory writer with a keen eye, a roving intelligence and a compassionate sensibility."
Page förklarade själv sin poetik så här:
"the idea [for a poem] diminishes to a dimensionless point in my absolute centre. If I can hold it steady long enough, the feeling which is associated with that point grows and fills a larger area... It is from here that I write - held within that luminous circle." Källa: University of Toronto
*
Motel pool, by P.K. Page
(Published in Canadian Poetry Online)
The plump good-natured children play in the blue pool:
roll and plop, plop and roll;
slide and tumble, oiled, in the slippery sun
silent as otters, turning over and in,
churning the water; or-seamstresses-cut and sew
with jackknives its satins invisibly.
Not beautiful, but suddenly limned with light
their elliptical wet flesh in a flash reflects it
and it greens the green grass, greens the hanging leaf
greens Adam and Eden, greens little Eve.
***
P.K. Page var "en medborgare inte bara i världen, men på jorden", som Eric Ormsby påpekar i sin inledning till hennes verk Planet Earth (1994). I själva verket så förutspår hon global uppvärmning redan i sitt visionära prosastycke "Unless the Eye Catch Fire", som publicerades första gången 1972.
"Planet Earth" is a celebration: "It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet/ till it shines in the sun like gold leaf."
Patricia Kathleen Page dog 2010, vid en ålder av 94 år.
**
Jag avslutar med en dikt om poesins eviga frågeställning.
 |
| P.K. Page |
Single traveller, by P.K. Page
(Published in Canadian Poetry Online)
What is this love that is my life's companion?
Shape-changer, sometimes faceless, this companion.
Single traveller, I wander a wasting world
awaiting the much anticipated Companion.
A trillium covered wood one April day
served as a nearly consummate companion.
A horse, two dogs, some cats, a blue macaw
each in its turn became a loyal companion.
Behind the loved embrace, a face of light-
demon or angel-lures me from my companion.
The street of love is neither wide nor narrow.
Its width depends on me and my companion.
Am I too bound and blinded by coarse wrappings
ever to know true love as my companion?
O Poet, squanderer of time and talents
why do you search for love as your Companion?
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