Earle Birney : Bushed

Biography;

Born May 13^th, 1904 in a log cabin along the Bow River in Alberta Earle Birney grew up in rural western Canada. He graduated with an honors degree in English literature in 1926 from the University of British Columbia, followed later by a Masters degree from the University of Toronto. While at UBC Birney was the editor of the student paper The Ubyssey, until he was removed by the university’s administration for his controversial opinions.

A follower of Trotskyism he married fellow activist Sylvia Johnston, while teaching at the University of Utah. The marriage was short lived and Birney returned to Canada to teach eventually receiving a professorship at UBC. Here he began what would eventually evolve into the creative writing department.

Throughout his career Earle Birney published several volumes of poetry and novels.

Context

In 1905 Alberta became a Province and was actively recruiting settlers to come and home stead. Despite the Canadian Pacific Railway that had linked eastern and western Canada in the late nineteenth century, western Canada was very much a wild and untamed frontier during Birney’s childhood. It was isolated from eastern Canada and the rest of the world not just geographically but also culturally

Bushed
a poem by Earle Birney
Madness and Exorcism of Poetry, c) 1974

He invented a rainbow but lightning struck it
shattered it into the lake-lap of a mountain
so big his mind slowed when he looked at it

Yet he built a shack on the shore
learned to roast porcupine belly and
wore the quills on his hatband

At first he was out with the dawn
whether it yellowed bright as wood-columbine
or was only a fuzzed moth in a flannel of storm
But he found the mountain was clearly alive
sent messages whizzing down every hot morning
boomed proclamations at noon and spread out
a white guard of goat
before falling asleep on its feet at sundown

When he tried his eyes on the lake ospreys
would fall like valkyries
choosing the cut-throat
He took then to waiting
till the night smoke rose from the boil of the sunset

But the moon carved unknown totems
out of the lakeshore
owls in the beardusky woods derided him
moosehorned cedars circled his swamps and tossed
their antlers up to the stars
then he knew though the mountain slept the winds
were shaping its peak to an arrowhead
poised

And now he could only
bar himself in and wait
for the great flint to come singing into his heart

Analysis

Birney’s poem “Bushed” seems to be a quintessentially western Canadian work, particularly given the nature of his childhood. It describes the Canadian wilderness as vast, harsh and beautiful, something to be both conquered and embraced. It describes physical and mental isolation overwhelmed by landscape in lines such as “owls in the beardusky woods derided him moosehorned cedars circled his swamps” and in the last stanza “he could only bar himself in and wait”.

Birney’s work reminds me of the view of Canadian landscape put forth by the Group of Seven. It seems likely that he would have been aware of their work given his history and background although they are working in different fields it would be interesting to compare the two.

Karen Ryning

Oct 14^th 2009

Credits

1) Bennett, Donna, Brown, Russell. A New Anthology of Canadian Literature

Oxford University Press 2002

2) Davey, Frank Earle Birney (Studies in Canadian Literautre)

Copp Clark 1971

3) http://www.cariboo.bc.ca/ae/e_birney/home.htm

4)http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&source=hp&q=earle+birney&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=