Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Purdy, Alfred Wellington
Parallel form(s) of name
- Al Purdy; A. W. Purdy
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1918-2000
History
Alfred Wellington Purdy was born in Wooler, Ontario on December 30, 1918. He was raised in Trenton, Ontario and attended Albert College in Belleville. During the 1930s he went to Vancouver, British Columbia, working for several years at a number of manual occupations. During World War II he served with the Royal Canadian Air Force. After the war he worked as a casual labourer in Ontario, eventually settling in Ameliasburgh. By the early 1960's Purdy was able to support himself by freelance writing, poetry reading, and writers-in-residence positions at various colleges. He died on April 21, 2000 in Sidney, British Columbia.
Al Purdy was one of a group of important Canadian poets, that included Milton Acorn, Alden Nowlan and Patrick Lane, who had little formal education and whose roots were in Canada's working-class culture. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and twice won the Governor General’s Award.