The Al Purdy memorial statue in Toronto // By Shaun Merritt [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Seven ways of looking at something else

The colour that glances off
from another colour
looks at something else
aslant and tangential
and may not be seen alone
only in symbiosis
–rings around necks of certain birds
to see that not-blue and not-green
requires growing an extra space
in your head to keep them safe in
—followed by this girl into a museum
standing by a mummy-case
waiting for the sun on painted queen
at that moment watching the girl
watching the queen watching the watcher
unable to break the circle
—in the Mediterranean off Famagusta
sunken bronze and filigree gold memories
have taken the sun to bed on the sea bottom
solar fires burn in mud
and the sea-moan crying in lava caves
Greek women not crying for their lovers
aching for their doodads
—take for instance
that the planet they figured out
had to be there on accounta how
the others acted because of it
like a dance with invisible partner

Give me that final mystery
the invisible woman so lovely
she is beyond my conception of her
yet only possible because of me
sweet shadow in the bedroom
my rebellious beloved satellite orbiting me
yearning to be free

The Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology is a fundraiser to restore the Ontario home where he nurtured aspiring young poets and made a mean wild-grape wine.

The ramshackle A-frame house Al Purdy built still stands by the lake in Ameliasburgh, Ontario. A place “so far from anywhere,” he wrote, “even homing pigeons lost their way.”

Inside, it’s nearly as it was when he died 10 years ago. His drawers and cupboards still hold the flotsam and jetsam of a well lived life.

Outside, wild grass has reclaimed a shed that was once a guest house for young poets like Michael Ondaatje. Purdy’s writing room, another shed, sinks slowly into the muddy earth. The main house is badly in need of a new foundation.

That’s where the Al Purdy A-frame Trust comes in. A collection of poets, authors and CanLit lovers want to raise the money to buy the land, save the house, and start writer-in-residence program in the A-frame.

“Nurturing young writers was a second vocation for Al,” said Jean Baird, the project’s head. “And he was blunt!”

Canada hasn’t done a great job of preserving its physical literary history, Baird says. The childhood home of author Joy Kogawa is preseved in British Colombia, but 60 years passed between it being her family home and becoming a historic site. Purdy’s house is still owned by his wife Eurithie, and remains largely untouched since his death.

The book The Al Purdy A-Frame Anthology is an amazing piece of Canadian literary history, and a fundraiser for the project.

The anthology has the same cobbled-together yet built-to-last feeling as the A-frame itself. It’s a summer scrapbook of essays, poems and pictures by authors including Denis Lee, F. R. Scott, and Margaret Atwood. Purdy’s own essays and poems flesh out the famous cottage that was once CanLit’s own homemade-wine fueled summer camp and setting for many of his poems.

The A-frame was the go-to spot for aspiring Canadian poets and acclaimed wordsmiths alike for 40 years. Many of the aspiring poets, like Ondaatje, later became the acclaimed in part due to their visits to the A-frame to hone their skills.

Many of the book’s contributors, including Eurithie, credit the house as the catalyst that transformed Purdy’s writing from his awkward early attempts to the beautiful and often brash verses he wrote in his middle years about the land and our history.

So we built a house, my wife and I

Our house at a backwater puddle of a lake

near Ameliasburgh, Ont. spending

our last hard-earned buck to buy second-hand lumber.

-Al Purdy, from “In Search of Owen Roblin”

Baird says it’ll cost about $900,000 to buy the house, upgrade it to current safety codes, and establish the writer-in-residence endowment. So far, most of the money the trust has received has been in $10 and $20 increments from poetry-loving Canadians. The push is on now to get several large donors to really get things rolling.

For more information about the project, or to make a donation, visit Harbourfront Publishing’s website.