Al Purdy – författare

Much-loved, cantankerous, and brilliant, Al Purdy galloped across the Canadian literary landscape for decades, grandly embodying the self-taught and hard-living image of the 1960s and '70s poet. The More Easily Kept Illusions: The Poetry of Al Purdy is a selection of thirty-five poems that includes some of his best-loved and unearths lost and ignored treasures. Robert Budde introduces the collection with an overview of Purdy's tumultuous life of letters, his legendary personality, his outrageous antics, his peers, his influences, and the history of his publishing career. Reorganizing Purdy's body of work, this collection also re-interprets the chronological and thematic development of his writing. Choosing poems for a book like this is necessarily an act of literary criticism and Budde takes care to balance the various critical attentions that have structured the historical responses to Purdy's work. The selected poems will mix lesser-known gems with Purdy's greatest hits. Teachers, poetry-lovers, students, and writers will rediscover Purdy's unique voice. Those who are new to his work will get a full and rich sense of the man some have called the last Canadian poet. Also includes an Afterword by Russell Morton Brown.

Originally published by Contact Press in 1962, then later by House of Anansi in 1967, and again in a revised, expanded edition in 1972, Poems for All the Annettes stands as one of the essential documents of the great Al Purdy’s career. So many beloved poems are here—"At Roblin Lake," "At the Quinte Hotel"—but also so many undiscovered gems and treasures. It is at once the perfect introduction to this remarkable poet’s work and a collection rich and deep enough to satisfy even the experienced Purdy fan. This edition reproduces the final, expanded text of the 1972 edition, and features a brilliant new introduction by poet and novelist Steven Heighton, who knew Purdy well.