Earle Birney Quotes & Sayings

Mature art, I think, emerges when there's a certain balance
of tensions, when there's neither neurotic prostration nor
cold rationality, but an aura of energy and a drive to grasp
personal "truths" still emerging into perception.
To grasp and to shape them. — Earle Birney

Through the cold time she holds me with evergreen devotion she bears up my whiteness. — Earle Birney

Since we had always sky about,
when we had eagles they flew out
leaving no shadow bigger then wrens'
to trouble our most aeromantic hens.
Too busy bridging loneliness to be alone
we hacked in ties what Emily etched in bone.
We French, we English, never lost our civil war,
Endure it still, a bloodless civil bore;
No wounded lying about, no Whitman wanted.
It's only by our lack of ghosts we're haunted. — Earle Birney

The Sun never sets. It is we who rise think to shine. — Earle Birney

It is not easy to free
myth from reality
or rear this fellow up
to lutch, lurch with them
in the tranced dancing of men. — Earle Birney

The essentials of poetry are rhythm, dance, and the human voice. — Earle Birney

The history of the development of contemporary writing in Vancouver from 1946 to 1960 is pretty largely a one-man show, and that man was me. — Earle Birney