Al Purdy

The story of Canada's leading poet and the A-Frame cabin he built. Now Canada's leading musicians and artists come together to tell the tale of Al Purdy.

America had Charles Bukowski and Canada had Al Purdy, a hard-drinking, hard-living poet who wrote about bars, hockey and beer. In this vibrant and kinetic short film, Purdy reads his best-known poem (involving a beer, a bar, and a brawl) accompanied by a dizzying array of animation that perfectly captures the work's ironic tone and its exuberant evocation of alcohol, antagonism and Art.