Alfred Wellington Purdy OC OOnt (December 30, 1918 – April 21, 2000) was a 20th-century Canadian free verse poet.

[2] In 1957, Purdy and his wife Eurithe moved to Roblin Lake in Ameliasburgh, Ontario (southeast of Trenton, in Prince Edward County), where they built an A-frame cottage, and this became his preferred location for writing.

In addition to his poems and novel, Purdy's work includes two volumes of memoirs, the most recent of which was Reaching for the Beaufort Sea.

He also wrote four books of correspondence, including Margaret Laurence - Al Purdy: A Friendship in Letters and radio and television plays for the CBC.

He was writer-in-residence at several Canadian universities; contributed to Acta Victoriana, literary journal of Victoria College;[4] and edited a number of anthologies of poetry.

[7] In 2016 it was revealed in Toronto Life that John Hofsess contributed to the assisted suicide of Purdy when the poet was dying of cancer.