Featured Articles — Fraser Sutherland

Fraser Sutherland remembers Al Purdy   An Echo in the Mountains: Al Purdy after a Century. Edited by Nicholas Bradley. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020.   ONCE I WAS GIVEN the thankless task of introducing Al Purdy to a room full of university undergraduates. I didn’t commit the folly of saying “Al Purdy needs no introduction” but I did say “Al Purdy is a great friend of young poets.” Purdy wasn’t going to let me get away with that. He snarled or bellowed (in his case they were often interchangeable), “I hate young poets!” He didn’t hate young poets; he was only seizing...