SOURCE: Bailey, A. G. “New Books.” The Dalhousie Review 30 (1950): 205-08.

In the following review, Bailey discusses Strait of Anian, which was published in 1948.

Of the forty-six poems in this book, twenty-seven are republished from Mr. Birney's earlier collections, David and Other Poems, and Now Is Time, for both of which he was awarded the coveted Governor-General's Medal for poetry, in the first instance in 1942, and in the second in 1945. The present volume is thus one of selected poems and provides the means for assessing the author's character, depth, and range of experience as a poet, as well as the direction his art has taken since he first began to publish over a decade ago. The wide popularity that these poems have enjoyed springs in part from the fresh and immediate sensory appeal of their imagery, and in part from the author's conception of life as a high adventure...