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Susan Musgrave: An Appreciation of Al Purdy
When Al Purdy was diagnosed as having a tumour on his lung, unlike many people in his predicament he didn't refuse to talk about it. His friends coped by trying to be brave. Some wrote poetry, some sent flowers. Poet Patrick Lane obsessively baked bread-more than Al and his wife Eurithe could possibly eat. "Why don't you hurry up and die so I can stop baking!"; Patrick asked Al.
Each time Susan Musgrave visited the Purdy's house on Lochside Drive, on the outskirts of Sidney, Al Purdy asked her if, when the time came, she would like some of his ashes. Each time she squirmed, it being hard to imagine someone who took up so much psychic and physical space being reduced to ashes. The last time she visited he asked if she wanted any part of his remains. "Which part, Al?"; she asked. Eurithe was in the room. "My penis,"; Al replied. Susan Musgrave says she wouldn't have expected less. With many references to Purdy's own work, the following commemorative poem by BCBW columnist Musgrave was read to Al Purdy before he died on April 21-and he liked it.
Smuggle them to Paris and fling them
into the Seine. P.S. He was wrong
when he wrote, "To Paris Never Again";
Put them in an egg-timer - that way
he can go on being useful, at least
for three minutes at a time
(pulverize him first, in a blender)
Like his no good '48 Pontiac
refusing to turn over in below zero weather,
let the wreckers haul his ashes away
Or stash them in the trunk of your car:
when you're stuck in deep snow sprinkle them
under your bald tires for traction
Mix them with twenty tons of concrete,
like Lawrence at Taos, erect
a permanent monument to his banned
poetry in Fenelon Falls
Shout "these ashes oughta be worth some beer!";
in the tavern at the Quinte Hotel, and wait
for a bottomless glass with yellow flowers in it
to appear
Mix one part ashes to three parts
homemade beer in a crock
under the table,
stir with a broom, and consume
in excessive moderation
Fertilize the dwarf trees at the
Arctic Circle
so that one day they might
grow to be
as tall as he, always the first
to know when it was raining
Scatter them at Roblin's Mills
to shimmer among the pollen
or out over Roblin Lake
where the great *boing* they make
will arouse summer cottagers
Place them beside your bed where they can
watch you make love, vulgarly
and immensely, in the little time left
Declare them an aphrodisiac, more potent
than the gallbladder of a bear
with none of the side-effects of Viagra
Stitch them in the hem of your summer dress
where his weight will keep it
from flying up in the wind, exposing
everything: he would like that
Let them harden, the way the heart must harden
as the might lessens, then lob them
at the slimy, drivelling, snivelling,
palsied, pulseless lot of critics who ever uttered
a single derogatory phrase in anti-praise
of his poetry
Award them the Nobel Prize
for humility
Administer them as a dietary supplement
to existential Eskimo dogs with a preference
for violet toilet paper and violent
appetites for human excrement: dogs
that made him pray daily
for constipation in Pangnirtung
Bequeath them to Margaret Atwood,
casually inserted between the covers
of Wm Barrett's IRRATIONAL MAN
Lose them where the ghosts of his Cariboo
horses graze on, when you stop to buy oranges
from the corner grocer at 100 Mile House
Distribute them from a hang-glider
over the Galapagos Islands
where blue-footed boobies will shield him
from over-exposure to ultraviolet rays
Offer them as a tip to the shoeshine boys
on the Avenida Juarez, all twenty of them
who once shined his shoes for one peso
and 20 centavos - 9 and a half cents -
years ago when 9 and a half cents
was worth twice that amount
Encapsulate them in the ruins of Quintana Roo
under the green eyes of quetzals, Tulum parrots,
and the blue, unappeasable sky -
that 600 years later they may still be warm
Declare them culturally modified property
and have them preserved for posterity
in the Museum of Modern Man, and, as
he would be the first to add, Modern Wife
As a last resort auction them off
to the highest bidder, the archives
at Queens or Cornell where
Auden's tarry lungs wheeze on
next to the decomposed kidneys of Dylan Thomas;
this will ensure Al's survival in Academia, also
But on no account cast his ashes to the wind:
they will blow back in your face as if to say
he is, in some form, poetic or other, here
to stay, with sestinas still to write
and articles to rewrite
for The Imperial Oil Review
No, give these mortal remains away
that they be used as a mojo to end the dirty
cleansing in Kosovo, taken as a cure
for depression in Namu, B.C., for defeat
in the country north of Belleville, for poverty
hopping a boxcar west out of Winnipeg
all the way to Vancouver, for heroin addiction
in Vancouver; a cure for loneliness
in North Saanich, for love in Oaxaca,
courtship in Cuernavaca, adultery
in Ameliasburgh, the one sure cure
for extremely deep hopelessness
in the Eternal City, for death, everywhere,
pressed in a letter sent whispering to you
By Susan Musgrave
[Al Purdy was born in 1918 in Wooler, Ontario. A memorial gathering was held in Sidney on April 30th.]
[BCBW SUMMER 2000]
Each time Susan Musgrave visited the Purdy's house on Lochside Drive, on the outskirts of Sidney, Al Purdy asked her if, when the time came, she would like some of his ashes. Each time she squirmed, it being hard to imagine someone who took up so much psychic and physical space being reduced to ashes. The last time she visited he asked if she wanted any part of his remains. "Which part, Al?"; she asked. Eurithe was in the room. "My penis,"; Al replied. Susan Musgrave says she wouldn't have expected less. With many references to Purdy's own work, the following commemorative poem by BCBW columnist Musgrave was read to Al Purdy before he died on April 21-and he liked it.
Smuggle them to Paris and fling them
into the Seine. P.S. He was wrong
when he wrote, "To Paris Never Again";
Put them in an egg-timer - that way
he can go on being useful, at least
for three minutes at a time
(pulverize him first, in a blender)
Like his no good '48 Pontiac
refusing to turn over in below zero weather,
let the wreckers haul his ashes away
Or stash them in the trunk of your car:
when you're stuck in deep snow sprinkle them
under your bald tires for traction
Mix them with twenty tons of concrete,
like Lawrence at Taos, erect
a permanent monument to his banned
poetry in Fenelon Falls
Shout "these ashes oughta be worth some beer!";
in the tavern at the Quinte Hotel, and wait
for a bottomless glass with yellow flowers in it
to appear
Mix one part ashes to three parts
homemade beer in a crock
under the table,
stir with a broom, and consume
in excessive moderation
Fertilize the dwarf trees at the
Arctic Circle
so that one day they might
grow to be
as tall as he, always the first
to know when it was raining
Scatter them at Roblin's Mills
to shimmer among the pollen
or out over Roblin Lake
where the great *boing* they make
will arouse summer cottagers
Place them beside your bed where they can
watch you make love, vulgarly
and immensely, in the little time left
Declare them an aphrodisiac, more potent
than the gallbladder of a bear
with none of the side-effects of Viagra
Stitch them in the hem of your summer dress
where his weight will keep it
from flying up in the wind, exposing
everything: he would like that
Let them harden, the way the heart must harden
as the might lessens, then lob them
at the slimy, drivelling, snivelling,
palsied, pulseless lot of critics who ever uttered
a single derogatory phrase in anti-praise
of his poetry
Award them the Nobel Prize
for humility
Administer them as a dietary supplement
to existential Eskimo dogs with a preference
for violet toilet paper and violent
appetites for human excrement: dogs
that made him pray daily
for constipation in Pangnirtung
Bequeath them to Margaret Atwood,
casually inserted between the covers
of Wm Barrett's IRRATIONAL MAN
Lose them where the ghosts of his Cariboo
horses graze on, when you stop to buy oranges
from the corner grocer at 100 Mile House
Distribute them from a hang-glider
over the Galapagos Islands
where blue-footed boobies will shield him
from over-exposure to ultraviolet rays
Offer them as a tip to the shoeshine boys
on the Avenida Juarez, all twenty of them
who once shined his shoes for one peso
and 20 centavos - 9 and a half cents -
years ago when 9 and a half cents
was worth twice that amount
Encapsulate them in the ruins of Quintana Roo
under the green eyes of quetzals, Tulum parrots,
and the blue, unappeasable sky -
that 600 years later they may still be warm
Declare them culturally modified property
and have them preserved for posterity
in the Museum of Modern Man, and, as
he would be the first to add, Modern Wife
As a last resort auction them off
to the highest bidder, the archives
at Queens or Cornell where
Auden's tarry lungs wheeze on
next to the decomposed kidneys of Dylan Thomas;
this will ensure Al's survival in Academia, also
But on no account cast his ashes to the wind:
they will blow back in your face as if to say
he is, in some form, poetic or other, here
to stay, with sestinas still to write
and articles to rewrite
for The Imperial Oil Review
No, give these mortal remains away
that they be used as a mojo to end the dirty
cleansing in Kosovo, taken as a cure
for depression in Namu, B.C., for defeat
in the country north of Belleville, for poverty
hopping a boxcar west out of Winnipeg
all the way to Vancouver, for heroin addiction
in Vancouver; a cure for loneliness
in North Saanich, for love in Oaxaca,
courtship in Cuernavaca, adultery
in Ameliasburgh, the one sure cure
for extremely deep hopelessness
in the Eternal City, for death, everywhere,
pressed in a letter sent whispering to you
By Susan Musgrave
[Al Purdy was born in 1918 in Wooler, Ontario. A memorial gathering was held in Sidney on April 30th.]
[BCBW SUMMER 2000]
Submitted on July 11, 2003 in By David.
