"I don't know of any good living poets," Charles Bukowski once said. "But there's this tough son of a bitch up in Canada that walks the line."
Bukowski was talking about Al Purdy, a man who would later be called Canada's "unofficial poet laureate" but first toiled for years as a nationalist poet at a time when that category wasn't something to be advertised. Along the way he gained fans and friends in writers like Leonard Cohen, Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje, all while eschewing the boring landscape clichés.
It'd also be a cliché to call him a rock star, but Brian D. Johnson's documentary Al Purdy Was Here practically begs for it. The film features performances and remembrances by artists like Jason Collett (who co-produced the film), Sarah Harmer, Bruce Cockburn and Tanya Tagaq (who you can see in the trailer doing a version of "Say The Names" with Joseph Boyden). It's as much a music story as it is a literature one.
Al Purdy Was Here will be playing between December 4 & 5 and December 8 & 9 at Toronto's Bloor Cinema and we have a pair of tickets to give away. The winner will have a choice of one of the following screenings:
To win, follow @ChartAttack on Twitter and retweet this tweet:
CONTEST: Win 2 tickets to @AlPurdyWasHere at Toronto's @TheBloorCinema. Follow & RT to win. https://t.co/wWbbpH5I8z pic.twitter.com/gCF3FGfXTs
— Chart Attack (@ChartAttack) November 25, 2015
CONTEST: Win a pair of tickets to see Al Purdy Was Here in Toronto by Chart Attack | Chart Attack.
