In the Purdy poem we are seldom aware of form, or even of verbal texture; we read for information, and once we have it, we feel disinclined to return to the verbal construct that delivered it to us…. The message or point of a Purdy poem is never very intimately related to its surface. The meaning of a line of Purdy's, for instance, hardly ever depends on our interpretation of a figure of speech; we never find any cross-qualification or refinement of meaning by the aural and visual qualities of the words themselves…. Purdy seems always to be less concerned with how he means than with what he means; he is quite willing to use the approximate word or image in an approximate way—indeed, he is forced to, in order to maintain the illusion of unpremeditated, casual speech. Understandably, we are apt on this basis to dismiss the whole question of form in Purdy's poetry, and to assume that in Purdy's case form is subservient to content. We say that it is "loose" or "open," meaning that it does not matter. But in fact, the Purdy poem does have a very definite, if not very restricting form.

Purdy's is not primarily a poetry of ideas; he writes about himself on the one hand, and about people and places on the other; and accordingly, his poetry ranges from self-disclosure to description…. But this range is deceptive. For whatever the subject, whatever the outward appearance, the pattern of the Purdy poem is the same. "Winter at Roblin Lake," for instance, is ostensibly an autobiographical document, lacking obvious structure and many of the trappings of poetry, whereas "Snow at Roblin Lake" is a more or less autonomous artefact, written in more or less traditional rhyming quatrains; the two poems seem similar only in the respect that their point and effect is gently humorous. On closer examination, however, we discover that both poems have the same plot: the speaker of the poem imagines the environment to be hostile and then articulates a response to it. We discover, moreover, that the humour of both poems relies on this plot and is, in effect, a transcendence of the imagined threat. We discover that these poems enact a drama of opposition, a dialectic. (p. 127)

[Upon] investigation, most of Purdy's poems turn out to be dialectical—greater or slighter oppositions between Purdy's self and the subject of the poem, followed by comic or pathetic reversals….

In discovering the dialectic in the Purdy poem, however, we are not done with it. In the Purdy poem the dialectic is fleshed out in a certain way; there is a characteristic treatment of its terms. In Purdy's hands, the dialectic articulates a turning away from reality to the imagination, to fantasy….

In ["Snow at Roblin Lake" and "Winter at Roblin Lake"], Purdy does not simply present us with a few miscellaneous details to contemplate as we will: he directs us through a progression of looks and glimpses, in which the environment is seen to increase in scale and power to fantastic, mythic proportions. This progression and escalation is effected by an increasingly figurative use of language within the poems: from denotation, to simile, to metaphor in "Winter at Roblin Lake"; and from denotation, to metaphor, to Biblical allusion in "Snow at Roblin Lake." The effect of the shifts in language and imagery is one of acceleration, of being first drawn, then swept away, as into a whirlpool. (p. 128)

[The] disinclination to dwell on the concrete or objectively real is revealed in his use of language. Purdy very rarely recreates the world in observed detail; instead, he refers and alludes to it. He delights neither in the sensuous qualities of words nor in his own senses….

The people and things in Purdy's poetry are flat, denoted only by a name or, as in "Percy Lawson," by something like a "gold-toothed grin."… People and things … only exist in the flux of association, are registered in the poems as mental events rather than as substantial entities in their own right. Figurative language is used only in representing his own mental life, his response to his subject or occasion. (p. 129)

Purdy's whole attention is on the making of a poem. He is not interested in being fathful to his subject nor to himself. And it is to this that Purdy's tendency to turn from fact to fiction leads. For despite the trappings of sincerity, Purdy is not a confessional poet: he doesn't turn from the world in order to bare his soul, or to plumb his own depths; he is really remarkably reticent…. What we respond to is his art, his craftsmanship—when it succeeds, when Purdy's tendency to leave his occasion altogether behind is sufficiently resisted.

Purdy's poems, then, are artificial; they are verbal creations, products of wit, and our interest in them is the same as our interest in metaphysical poetry. We keep reading to see how he will justify the flight of fancy, the outrageous imagery, the historical and mythological allusions. Purdy merely uses larger and looser tropes than metaphor or analogy. (p. 130)

There is nothing restrictive about the form that Purdy has developed for himself. It is capable of much more than Purdy demands of it. And yet the picture we get of Purdy in his poems is of someone wearing blinkers, of someone labouring within unnecessary limitations. His intellectual and emotional range is narrower than it needs to be. Although Purdy sees and feels, he does neither with any intensity…. At the moments in Purdy's poems when we feel he is most open to the spiritual or mystical dimension, to any kind of transcendental or religious experience, he turns away, denying his poetry the kind of depth it most lacks. (p. 131)