If one poet can be said to be the Canadian poet, that poet is Al Purdy (1918–2000). Numerous eminent scholars and writers have attested to this pre-eminent status. George Bowering described him as “the world’s most Canadian poet” (1970), while Sam Solecki titled his book-length study of Purdy The Last Canadian Poet (1999). In The Ivory Thought: Essays on Al Purdy, a group of seventeen scholars, critics, writers, and educators appraise and reappraise Purdy’s contribution to English literature. They explore Purdy’s continuing significance to contemporary writers; the life he dedicated to literature and the persona he crafted; the influences acting on his development as a poet; the ongoing scholarly projects of editing and publishing his writing; particular poems and individual books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction; and the larger themes in his work, such as the Canadian North and the predominant importance of place. In addition, two contemporary poets pay tribute with original poems.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- C811/.54
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 22
- General Note
- Selection of presentations at a symposium held at the University of Ottawa, May 5-7, 2006 Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- ISBN
- 9780776606651 9780776617572
- LCCN
- PR9199.3.P8
- LCCN Item number
- Z84 2008eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaOONL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (265 p.)
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)slc00222378 (OCoLC)752600167 (CaOOCEL)424748
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Contents 8
- Reference Key 10
- Introduction 14
- Ingredients for Certain Poems by Al Purdy 22
- Materials for a Biography of Al Purdy 26
- Unremembered and Learning Much: LAC Alfred W. Purdy 44
- Al Purdy: Ivory Thots and the Last Romantic 64
- Purdy among the Tombs 76
- Beyond Forgetting: Editing Purdy] Purdy Editing 84
- 'I couldn't write it like that anyway': Al Purdy's Hiroshima Poems 104
- Purdy's Ruins: In Search of Owen Roblin, Literary Power, and the Poetics of the Picturesque 116
- Arctic Al: Purdy's Humanist Vision of the North 132
- Good People 150
- 'Living in a Land of Giants': Locating and Sustaining Boyhood 156
- 'Kind of ludicrous or kind of beautiful I guess': Al Purdy's Rhetoric of Failure 172
- Song and Silence in Al Purdy's Family Elegies 186
- 'Buried bones and ornaments and stuff': Purdy's Reliquary Poetics 204
- On Trying to Wear Al's Shirts 226
- Reflections on a Dynamic Collaboration 234
- Al Purdy, Sam Solecki, and Canadian Tradition 240
- Conclusion, Retrospective, and Prospective 252
- Select Bibliography of Secondary Materials 260
- Contributors 264
- Index 266
- A 266
- B 267
- C 268
- D 269
- E 269
- F 270
- G 270
- H 270
- I 271
- J 271
- K 271
- L 272
- M 272
- N 273
- O 273
- P 274
- Q 275
- R 275
- S 276
- T 277
- U 278
- V 278
- W 278
- Y 278
