Yours, Al: The Collected Letters of Al Purdy

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

This collection of letters by—and some to—Al Purdy begins with a
letter from the young Purdy, long before he had found his true style in
either prose or verse, to Earle Birney, who became a valued mentor. It
ends, save for a moving letter written to Eurithe Purdy by Fraser
Sutherland after Purdy’s death, more than 50 years later with a letter
to Sam Solecki in which he pays tribute to the critic, editor, and
friend who helped him with the production of Beyond Remembering (2000),
his collected poems, and edited his autobiography and the collected
prose as well as the book under review.

Purdy is one of those writers who reveals himself unforgettably in all
his mature work, whether poetry or even literary commentary. For that
reason, perhaps, his letters are not quite as revelatory as might have
been expected. After reading them, then, I did not feel that my
impression of Purdy had changed in any significant way.

However, his correspondents include all the important names in Canadian
poetry in the second half of the 20th century: Acorn, Atwood, Birney,
Bowering, Coles, Dudek, Glassco, Johnston, Lane, Layton, Newlove,
Ondaatje, F.R. Scott, etc. Moreover, Purdy is always prodigal with
comments on his contemporaries, Canadian or otherwise. He can be
opinionated, obstinate, and is not always accommodating to writers whose
attitude to poetry is notably different from his own, but he is nothing
if not lively.

Perhaps most fascinating are his exchanges with Irving Layton and
George Johnston—Layton because Purdy responds with rather reluctant
admiration to his best work and seems oblivious of their resemblances to
each other, Johnston because one could not think of two more different
poets and both defend their respective positions with determination and
dignity.

Solecki, clearly feeling that standard scholarly editing would be out
of place here, plumps for an endearing alternation between the casual
and the curmudgeonly. All in all, a required volume for any Canadian
literature specialist.