Purdy, Al, 1918-2000

Alfred Wellington Purdy was born on December 30, 1918, in Wooler, Ontario.

He was a Canadian poet, one of the finest of his generation. He attended Albert College in Belleville, Ontario, and Trenton Collegiate Institute in Trenton, Ontario, but dropped out of school at 17 and led a nomadic life, working at a variety of jobs and travelling extensively. He worked in a factory, served in the Royal Canadian Air Force (1940-1945), was a store clerk, a visiting professor at Simon Fraser University, and a creative writing teacher at the Banff School of Fine Arts (1971-1973). His works include thirty-nine books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence, in addition to his posthumous works. The central focus of his poetry was “the country north of Belleville”, Ontario, which provided a title for one of his best-known poems. While his first collection of verses appeared in 1944, Purdy did not discover his distinctive poetic voice until the 1960s. He received the Order of Canada in 1982, the Order of Ontario in 1987, and the Governor General's Award, in 1965 for his collection “The Cariboo Horses”, and again in 1986, for “The Collected Poems of Al Purdy.” His other volumes of verse include “North of Summer” (1968), “In Search of Owen Roblin” (1974), and “The Stone Bird” (1981). Most of his best work is collected in “Being Alive: Poems 1958–78” (1978). He also wrote radio and television plays. In 2008, a large bronze statue of Purdy was unveiled in Queen's Park in downtown Toronto.

He died on April 21, 2000, in North Saanich, British Columbia.