There is [a] personal factor that enters into Birney's relations with the west coast Modernists, indeed with the world at large. I [mention] his touchiness, which stems from a deeply experienced supersensitivity, the source doubtless of his art. Generous, democratic, open-handed to other poets he certainly is, traits of the eclectic man. But he is also the isolato, the loner, and for this reason the wanderer. Able to draw on a wide range of influences, he is not inclined to join in, and much of his poetry which takes Canada as its occasion testifies how alien he feels in his own country. It is when Birney is on the road, in Mexico, China, India, where he is an alien, recognized as such, that he seems to relax into his finest delicate-eared, quick-eyed poems. His 'Canadian' poems reveal not only the pain but the writing strain of the alienation he feels. Modernist art, in which the self is subject and the ultimate object to live all you can, calls not simply for approval from the correspondent, the other, whether he be teacher, writer or reader. But for a joining in. Because Birney is not a joiner, few of the poets were able to experience a Birney-in-themselves. Aware as they were of his benevolence, few of them were able to take him in as a source for their poetry. (pp. 193-94)
Warren Tallman, "Wonder Merchants: Modernist Poetry in Vancouver During the 1960's" (1973), in Open Letter (copyright © 1976 by Warren Tallman), Winter, 1976–77, pp. 175-207.
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