"Dear John: I was down in your neck or coccyx of the woods last week and put my arms around an ex-pro boxer's wife in a drunken euphoria and nearly got my profile altered to 7500 A.D. . . . Dear Louis: I was just talking to Peter Brown and he says you hate me . . . What a waste of time. . . . Dear Buc: I always used to tell Birney if he died before me I was gonna grind him up and marinate him for an aphrodisiac. I like the guy, but never could figure out his apparent attraction to women . . ." --from various letters

Save the Al Purdy A-Frame Campaign
The Canadian League of Poets has declared a
National Al Purdy Day!
Al Purdy was born December 30, 1918, in Wooler, Ontario and died at Sidney, BC, April 21, 2000. Raised in Trenton, Ontario, he lived throughout Canada as he developed his reputation as one of Canada's greatest writers. His collections included two winners of the Governor General's Award, Cariboo Horses (1965) and Collected Poems (1986)
and other classics such as Poems for All the Annettes, In Search of Owen Roblin and Piling Blood. Later in life, he travelled widely with his wife Eurithe and settled in Ameliasburg, Ontario and Sidney, BC. In addition to his thirty-three books of poetry, he published a novel, an autobiography and nine collections of essays and correspondence. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1983 and the Order of Ontario in 1987. His ashes are buried in Ameliasburg at the end of Purdy Lane.