Most Popular Books by Al Purdy

This is a selection of 35 poems by one of Canada''s best loved and most cantankerous poets, with introduction by Budde, and an Afterword by Russell Brown.

Poems.

MANY OF PURDY''S FAMILIAR THEMES ARE HERE--HIS EMPATHY FOR FOREIGN PLACES AND DISTANT TIMES, HIS AFFECTION FOR LOSERS AND OUTSIDERS, HIS FASCINATION WITH PRE-HISTORY AND THE FRAGMENTED RECORDS OF DEAD CIVILIZATIONS.

A Splinter in the Heart, Al Purdy''s only novel, provides a vivid picture of Purdy''s childhood home of Trenton, Ontario, in the final days of the First World War. On Thanksgiving Day in 1918, Trenton was devastated by a fire and explosion at a munitions factory owned by the British Chemical Company, the town''s one big employer. All of the action in A Splinter in the Heart anticipates this cataclysm. As disaster looms, Purdy takes Patrick Cameron, his awkward and undistinguished teenage hero, through the usual elements of adolescence: he falls in love; he takes up long-distance running; his mother is courted by Trenton''s firebrand preacher; his ancient grandfather, Marshall "Portugee" Cameron, dies.

The autobiography of one of Canada''s best loved poets bristles with splenetic vitality -Stephen Smith, Quill & Quire

Poems by poets not yet widely known. Contains photos and biographical information.

A hundred years from now, one of the few Canadian poets whose work will still be read is Al Purdy -Maclean''s

Thirteen Bantu tales about the heroic Temba, who was courageous and resourceful as well as kind and who used these qualities to win the daughter of the Rain Lord.

If you want to read some decent strong human stuff without fakery I''d say Al Purdy the Canadian. . . one of the few very good poets since 1900. -Charles Bukowski Purdy is one of the most substantial poets in English of the century. -Dennis Lee

To Paris Never Again is Purdy''s first collection of new writing ''s since 1994: fifty-one poems plus "Home Country," an essay of nostalgic anecdotes that provides a facinating background to much of the poetry. Here is the work of a major poet in the maturity of a long, eventful life, a voice steeped in the wisdom of age, yet responsive to the subtlest shadings of experience.

Poems commissioned for CBC radio''s literary series Anthology.