SOURCE: West, Paul. “Earle Birney and the Compound Ghost.” Canadian Literature, no. 13 (summer 1962): 5-14.

In the following essay, West discusses Ice Cod Bell or Stone, placing it within the context of the poet's previous works of verse and fiction.

No pomp or poet's pose: just a tall, self-contained self-analyst dominating the lectern and mixing shrewd points with occasional smiling mutiny, as if to suggest a terrible soul beneath: not professional or vatic, but a gently wild man born in Calgary in 1904. That is how he must have appeared, as lecturer and reciter, during a multitude of performances in North America, Japan, Mexico, India and London. It is typical of him that he should speak of “saying” his poems, display a genial regard for beer-parlours and write, he supposes, to prevent himself from going mad.

The poet in this poet-professor has always delightedly fastened upon the unfamiliar: not to...