High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Alfred Wellington Purdy, OC, O.Ont (December 30, 1918 – April 21, 2000) was one of the most popular and important Canadian poets of the 20th century. Purdy`s writing career spanned more than fifty years. His works include over thirty books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence. He has been called the nation`s "unofficial poet laureate" and "a national poet in a way that you only find occasionally in the life of a culture."