GREAT SILENT BALLAD
Winner of the 2025 Al & Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize
Great Silent Ballad, lyric poet A.F. Moritz’s twenty-second volume of poetry, in visionary terms, forwards the assertion that poetry, a primordial reality, is in the current moment both the equal of, and the antidote to, the rest of present-day civilization and its suicidal nature.
“Art and Artists” reading at the Free Times Café
Purdy Prize Celebration at Type Books Junction
Oakville Literary Café
Great Silent Ballad wins the 2025 Al and Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize
Mark your Calendars for the Ottawa and Toronto Anansi Bashes
Great Silent Ballad Shortlisted for the 2025 Al and Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize
AS FAR AS YOU KNOW
As Far As You Know, acclaimed poet A. F. Moritz’s twentieth collection of poems, begins with two sections entitled “Terrorism” and “Poetry.” The book unfolds in six movements, yet it revolves around and agonizes over the struggle between these two catalyzing concepts, in all the forms they might take, eventually arguing they are the unavoidable conditions and quandary of human life.
THE GARDEN
The Garden by A. F. Moritz is a passionate denunciation of injustice, especially as seen in the violent injustice directed to the African diaspora in North America. Comprised of a long poem, “The Garden in the Midst”, and an in-depth essay, “The Poet’s Garden,” the book … suggests that only the essence of poetry can prove antithetical antidote—if there can even be one—to this human crime and tragedy..
ABOUT
A. F. Moritz has written more than twenty books of poetry. His most recent collections are The Sparrow (2018), As Far As You Know (2020), and Great Silent Ballad (2024). He has received the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award in Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Ingram Merrill Fellowship. His collection, The Sentinel, won the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize, was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, and was a Globe and Mail Top 100 of the Year. And Great Silent Ballad received the 2025 Al & Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize. He lives in Toronto, where he recently served as the city’s sixth Poet Laureate.
POET LAUREATE
AUDIO/VIDEO
POETRY COLLECTIONS
CHAPBOOKS & BROADSIDES
TRANSLATION
MAGAZINES
NON-FICTION
ANTHOLOGIES & EDITIONS
INTERVIEWS
