Item 0001 - Beggared heart : poem.

Title and statement of responsibility area

Title proper

Beggared heart : poem.

General material designation

Parallel title

Other title information

Title statements of responsibility

Title notes

Level of description

Item

Edition area

Edition statement

Edition statement of responsibility

Class of material specific details area

Statement of scale (cartographic)

Statement of projection (cartographic)

Statement of coordinates (cartographic)

Statement of scale (architectural)

Issuing jurisdiction and denomination (philatelic)

Dates of creation area

Date(s)

  • n.d. (Creation)
    Creator
    Purdy, Alfred Wellington

Physical description area

Physical description

Item extent to be completed at a later date

Publisher's series area

Title proper of publisher's series

Parallel titles of publisher's series

Other title information of publisher's series

Statement of responsibility relating to publisher's series

Numbering within publisher's series

Note on publisher's series

Archival description area

Name of creator

(1918-2000)

Biographical history

Alfred Wellington Purdy, a prominent Canadian poet, was born on 30 December 1918 at Wooler, Ontario and died on 21 April 2000 at Victoria, British Columbia. Purdy was one of an important group of poets recognised as "working class" poets, or "poets of the people." His formal education ended after only two years of high school, and he spent the Depression years "riding the rails" and worked at a number of jobs in British Columbia.

When the Second World War broke out, Purdy joined the R.C.A.F. and served for six years. After his discharge, he lived in British Columbia, supporting himself and his wife as a labourer. In 1956, they returned east, living for a period in Montreal -- where Purdy encountered the leaders of the contemporary Canadian literary scene, among them poet Irving Layton -- and then settling in Ameliasburgh.

By the mid-sixties, Purdy had found his own voice and was able to establish a considerable reputation as a poet. Purdy received several Canada Council Grants that enabled him to travel to such places as the interior of British Columbia in 1960, to Baffin Island in 1965, and to Greece in 1967, in order to broaden his base of experience. He published steadily in the sixties and seventies, to wide acclaim, and by 1982, had twenty-five volumes of poetry plus numerous works of prose, radio plays and dramas, and book reviews. In 1968, he edited the collection of essays, “The New Romans.” In the eighties, Purdy reached the critical pinnacle of an illustrious career with the publication of “The Stone Bird” (1981), “Piling Blood” (1984), and “The Collected Poems of Al Purdy, 1956-1986” (1986). In 1990, Purdy published his first novel the semi-autobiographical “Splinter in the Heart”, and then the autobiography “Reaching for the Beaufort Sea” (1993).

Purdy's work won him the Governor General's Award for poetry twice; the first time in 1965, for “The Cariboo Horses” (1965) and the second in 1986, for "The Collected Poems of Al Purdy, 1956-1986." He also won the A.J.M. Smith Award for "Sex & Death" (1973). In 1982, he was also rewarded by the larger community with an Order of Canada and, in 1987, an Order of Ontario.

Al Purdy married his wife, Eurithe Mary Jane Parkhurst, in 1941. Al Purdy is survived by his wife.

Custodial history

Scope and content

Typescript.

Notes area

Physical condition

Immediate source of acquisition

Arrangement

Language of material

Script of material

Location of originals

Availability of other formats

Restrictions on access

Terms governing use, reproduction, and publication

Finding aids

Associated materials

Related materials

Accruals

General note

Partial

Alternative identifier(s)

Standard number area

Standard number

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Control area

Description record identifier

Institution identifier

Rules or conventions

Status

Revised

Level of detail

Dates of creation, revision and deletion

Language of description

Script of description

Sources

Accession area

Related subjects

Related people and organizations

Related places

Related genres

Location (use this to request the file)

  • Folder: 2001.1, Box 72, File 8