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Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets: Selected Poems 1962-1996
Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets Selected Poems 19621996 Author:Al Purdy A selection of poems by the man described by the Globe & Mail as "the greatest of our poets." Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets is the only volume of Al Purdy's selected poetry currently in print, and it includes three decades' worth of thought-provoking work, from the Governor-General's Award-winning The Cariboo Horses to... more »Naked with Summer in Your Mouth. Purdy has personally made this selection, assisted by Sam Solecki, the editor of Starting from Ameliasburgh: The Collected Prose of Al Purdy. In these poems, Al Purdy ponders the remains of an Indian village; Fidel Castro in Revolutionary Square; a noisy cellmate in the drunk tank; the "combination of ballet and murder" known as hockey; a stint in the Armed Forces during "the phony war"; the smell of rotten eggs; a married man's infidelity ("There are rooms for rent in the outer planets"; and the death of a barnraising, backwoods farming, poker playing, brawling lumberjack grandfather, all rendered in the author's inimitable, pull-no-punches style. Rooms for Rent in the Outer Planets is destined to become the standard Purdy poetry volume for many years to come.« less