IT`S A DAUNTING task to review a hefty book of poetry spanning 46 years of writing. This new edition of The Glass Air, Poems Selected and New (Oxford University Press, 216 pages, $1795 paper), by P. K. Page, adds 12 new poems to the original volume of poetry, two essays, and several pages of her artwork. Page is a master of rhythm - her utter musicality makes my ears perk right up. Of course poetry should be read aloud, but Page`s fluidity can make even the tone-deaf smile with an exquisite, newfound discrimination of scales. Words fairly roll off the tongue: Crowded together typists touch softly as ducks and seem to sense each others` anguish with the swift sympathy of the deaf and dumb. Page, an accomplished painter as well as poet, urges us to use our senses, especially our visual perception. She reveals to us her world of Brazilian lushness, the flux of the sea, and always shapes her work with elegant craft. To carp a bit, her new work doesn`t delight immediately. The convocation `Address at Simon Fraser" may be an extraordinary step for her in the direction of politically engaged poetry, but it`s too general in tone to impress upon us the specific horror of ecological calamity. The most direct, simple, and sure compliment for The Glass Air is that it`s a book of art from an artistic life.