SOURCE: Colombo, John Robert. “Poetic Ambassador.” Canadian Literature, no. 24 (spring 1965): 55-9.

In the following essay, Colombo offers a positive assessment of Birney's sixth volume of poetry, Near False Creek Mouth.

Let me start with a few sentences from the Revised Edition of Desmond Pacey's Creative Writing in Canada. Concerning the poetry of Earle Birney, Professor Pacey has this to say: “Next to Pratt, he is the most original poet of Canada. … Unlike most contemporary Canadian poets, Birney is not given to echoing Eliot, Auden or Dylan Thomas. He is not always successful as a poet, but he is always himself. … Birney's tendency to root his poems in the present … frequently betrays him, as it also has betrayed Pratt in recent years, into writing not only of but merely for the moment.” Agreed—but since writing this, Birney broke his ten years of silence and published two totally new...