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
includes three decades' worth of thought-provoking work, including poems from the Governor-General's Award-winning
The Cariboo Horses
to
Naked with Summer in Your Mouth.
Purdy personally made this selection, assisted by Sam Solecki, the editor of
Starting from Ameliasburgh: The Collected Prose of Al Purdy
. In these poems, Purdy ponders the remains of a Native village; encounters Fidel Castro in Revolutionary Square; curses a noisy cellmate in the drunk tank; and marvels at the "combination of ballet and murder" known as hockey, all in the author's inimitable man-on-the-street style.
is destined to become the standard Purdy poetry volume for many years to come.