The Al Purdy A-frame Residency

Mark Abley writes about the A-Frame in the Montreal Gazette: MONTREAL – Go to rural New Hampshire, and you can visit the Frost Place outside Franconia, a house where the American poet Robert Frost lived for five rewarding years. It’s now a museum and a non-profit centre for the arts. Go to rural Wales, and you can…

Marni Jackson in the Globe and Mail writes about the Purdy A-Frame: Saving a Purdy A-frame – and other cultural edifices Marni Jackson, Thursday, Apr. 05, 2012 Unless someone writes a cheque, the cabin built by a great Canadian poet on the shores of Roblin Lake will be sold, and perhaps torn down In the wake…

Emily Jackson at Toronto Star on the effort to save the A-frame: Made of salvaged lumber in 1957, the house that beloved Canadian poet Al Purdy built sits on the bank of a rural Ontario lake, its future as insecure as its rickety footings. For more than 40 years Purdy and his wife Eurithe welcomed writers,…

The Al Purdy A-FRAME Anthology is being launched across Canada! On November 18th, 2009, it was launched at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto with Dennis Lee, Michael Ondaatje, Paul Vermeersch, Dave Bidini, Steven Heighton, John Degen, Geoff Heinricks, Russell Brown, John Reeves & others. On November 11th it was launched at the University of Waterloo’s School…

The Al Purdy A-frame Association has published a book, The Al Purdy A-FRAME Anthology, through Harbour Publishing. The book consists of contributions by prominent members of the literary community who visited the Purdys during the fifty years they occupied the property, along with writings by Al Purdy in which the property is mentioned. Selling through…

Kevin Van Paassen for The Globe and Mail Poetic myths can be hard to sustain in a prosy age, but every versifier in Canada will tell you something uncanny happened 50 years ago on a bush lot in the country south of Belleville, Ont., where local couple Al and Eurithe Purdy had retreated after the…

The United Nations declared 1975 International Women’s Year, and Jack McClelland decided he had to do something about it. So he put out a public call for poetry by Canadian women, in aid of producing an anthology of the best of it. And he volunteered Al Purdy and me, his editor, to make the selection.…

The following letter, written by Dr. David Bentley of the University of Western Ontario and co-signed by 40 of his colleagues from universities coast-to-coast, was distributed late February to all post-secondary institutions, Canadian literature and Canadian studies organizations. “Al Purdy has been described at various times and by various writers as the “first,” the “last,”…

NATIONAL AL PURDY DAY (APRIL 21, 2009) — In recognition of the importance of Al Purdy to Canadian poetry, the iconic symbol of the A-frame to Canadian culture, and in support of the Purdy A-frame Association, the League of Canadian Poets officially declared APRIL 21, 2009 NATIONAL AL PURDY DAY. All Canadian poets and lovers…