The Glass Air: Poems Selected and New

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
author of Calling Texas.

Page is a major Canadian poet, probably one of the two or three best of
the twentieth century, and this indispensable collection assembles most
of her poetry, along with two short but stimulating essays on poetry and
nine of the drawings she has created under the name P.K. Irwin. Page has
slighted her early socially conscious poems a little, but there is
plenty here to reveal her enviable range. Her most memorable work falls
into the visionary category. The essays and drawings help explain the
nature of the visionary in her work: it is neither vague nor whimsical.
However, she has also dealt with the quiet desperation of stenographers,
the plight of the Third World, the small pleasures of the garden—the
complete list of subjects would be very long. Her forms vary from the
very brief to considerable sequences, and her style moves freely among
narrative, lyric, and satire. She manages to be a metaphysical poet, a
symbolist, and an imagist. A dozen poems have been added to this
expanded version of The Glass Air, a book that first appeared in 1985,
and they include her long commissioned piece on Sibelius (which is not
one of her best efforts) and her witty and imaginative poem about the
kaleidoscope (which is one of her best). Page is a national treasure:
this book is self-recommending.