Response to "Can. Lit." by Earle Birney

Can Lit.


since we'd always sky about                         Birney is commenting on past Canadian Poets,
when we had eagles they flew out                        specifically Confederation poets
leaving no shawod bigger than wren's
to trouble even our broodiest hens

to busy bridging loneliness                                            commenting on the contruction of the CPR
to be alone                                                                         and national pipeline vs. national sentiments
we hacked in railway ties
what emily etched in bone                                Emily Carr is a greater adovacate for nationalism than
                                                                                    national railway

we French and English never lost
our civil war                                                                            National struggle between cultures
endure it still                                                                                challenges national unity
a bloody civil bore

the wounded sirened off                                       Our civic war is one of our ghosts which incorporate
no Whitman wanted                                              history, poetry and internationalism.
it's only by our lack of ghost
we're haunted

(1962)

Birney, E. "Can. Lit.", The New Oxford Book of Canadian Verses, Ed. Margaret Atwood. Oxford Uni Press (Toronto: 1982). P. 116