P. K. Page, in a career that has lasted for almost half a century, has shown herself a Protean writer, continually overstepping the boundaries of genre and category. She has written a romantic novel, a number of novellas and short stories, and Brazilian Journal (1987), a glittering prism of a book covering three years of her life (1956-1959) that is both a remarkable travel book and a vivid work of autobiography. She has also acquired a reputation as a painter under her married name of P. K. Irwin; her work as a visual artist hangs in the National Gallery in Ottawa and in a number of other important public and private collections.

It is as a poet that Page has worked most consistently, even if intermittently, and that she is best known. It is well over forty years since her work began to draw attention, and she is still...