Sex & death

by Alfred Purdy

Book by Purdy, Al

Genres: Poetry

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Alfred Wellington Purdy was one of the most popular and important Canadian poets of the 20th century. Purdy's writing career spanned more than fifty years. His works include over thirty books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence. He has been called the nation's "unofficial poet laureate".

Born in Wooler, Ontario Purdy went to Albert College in Belleville, Ontario, and Trenton Collegiate Institute in Trenton, Ontario. He dropped out of school at 17 and rode the rails west to Vancouver. He served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II. Following the war, he worked in various jobs until the 1960s, when he was finally able to support himself as a writer, editor and poet.

Honours and awards Purdy received include the Order of Canada (O.C.) 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. The League of Canadian Poets gave Purdy the Voice of the Land Award, a special award created by the League to honour his unique contribution to Canada.

Al Purdy died in North Saanich, B.C., on April 21, 2000. His final collection of poetry, Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy, was released posthumously in the fall of 2000.

On May 20, 2008, a large bronze statue of Purdy was unveiled in Queen's Park in downtown Toronto.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Graceful Little Verse

I'd run into you sometimes
perhaps talking with other people
and your voice would change
- among nervous smiles
sensible enthusiasms
in unremarkable kitchens
you
Elsewhere
in treetops the wind whirs up there
pools of silence cling to old buildings
over the blue soil of water
waves like the wispering armies
a distant sound that might be joy
could be sorrow next door
There are times I listen
to electric motors
starting up beyond the darkness
or furniture without special significance
creaking like bones in the bodies of strangers
silent deployment of grammar and syntax in the poem
your breath makes trembling under a blouse
reverse braille of your steps in the grass
disappearing in the untranslatable universe

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al Purdy is a favourite writer of mine. I like all his books of poems (mostly, I haven't read every one). This one has sex and death at its core in explanation and wonderment of the similarities. The landscape always not too far off.

Saw the cover one after. Too bad I don't have one to scan. Was thinking not too long ago I'd like to read a poem or two of his. I was in a work-stay-travel when I heard of his passing, drinking with a friend type. He was a pioneer of assisted dying, I didn't find out until years later, reading an article at the library. Met him. Like me, he's also in the long fingers group. A bit deaf at the time tho.