CLASSIFICATION
Swallow ID:
8360
Partner Institution:
University of Calgary
Source Collection Label:
Earle Birney fonds
Sub Series:
Earle Birney fonds
ITEM DESCRIPTION
Title:
Earle Birney reading uncollected poems (Tape 4)
Title Source:
Transcribed from the artifact
Title Note:
Label of recording title and included poems taped to box. Box stamped ME 0X5.
Language:
English
Production Context:
Studio recording
Identifiers:
[8.1-4]
Rights
Rights:
The Public Domain Mark (PDM)
CREATORS
Name:
Birney, Earle
Dates:
1904-1995
CONTRIBUTORS
MATERIAL DESCRIPTION
Recording Type:
Analogue
AV Type:
Audio
Material Designation:
Reel to Reel
Physical Composition:
Magnetic Tape
Extent:
1/4 inch
Playing Speed:
7 1/2 ips
Tape Brand:
CBC Radio - Canada
Sound Quality:
Excellent
Physical Condition:
Good
DIGITAL FILE DESCRIPTION
Duration:
T00:26:48
Size:
444.39 MB
Dates
Date:
1966
Type:
Performance Date
Notes:
Dates supplied through research for copyright.
LOCATION
CONTENT
Contents:
Earle Birney
[00:00:00]
Reads "Cadet Hospital".
Earle Birney
[00:02:39]
Reads "Meet the Birds".
Earle Birney
[00:09:05]
Reads six untitled sonnets.
Earle Birney
[00:17:36]
Reads "Halifax".
Earle Birney
[00:20:38]
Reads "Restricted Area".
Earle Birney
[00:22:36]
Reads "Montreal".
Notes:
- “Cadet”: Brockville Military Hospital July 1942. It was the graduating night of his class of officers but Birney was in the hospital with a broken leg from a training accident. This poem was in a letter to his wife. Birney remarks “it’s not a very good poem, I’m afraid. But let’s see how it sounds.” Birney starts his reading over because he says “radio idiots” instead of “idiot radios” to which he laughs quite a bit and apologizes to the ‘audience’.
- “Meet”: Written when Birney overseas, children’s poems to his four year old son. Birney was hung up on birds at the time, not sure his son ever read them but he enjoyed writing them. Language is quite dated (slang of the 1940s). The Killdeer; (after reading the Killdeer inserts footnote that he read a line incorrectly); The Nighthawk; The Woodpecker; The Loon; The Chickadee
- Sonnets: six sonnets from overseas in wartime.
- “In Praise”: Belgium 1944, it was a cold winter and Birney’s unit was under rocket fire. He received a delayed mail package with a magazine full of bad poetry by fashionable young London writers. Short imitation of them.
- “Halifax”: When Birney was in Halifax between a hospital ship and a hospital train at the end of the war. Birney lost this poem and only rediscovered it a few days before this recording. It is an unfinished poem, Birney had been looking at Hugh MacLennan’s Barometer Rising in which he says “Halifax periodically sleeps between wars.”
- “Restricted”: Summer 1945, Birney convalescing for a weekend at Lake Huron after leaving army. This is the first time he sees a sign ‘Gentiles Only’. The poem is in the voice of the man who puts up signs like this.
NOTES
RELATED WORKS