Earle Birney

Earle Birney was born in Calgary, Alberta, in 1904, and was educated at the University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, Berkeley and University of London. At the age of twelve he became the editor of a realistic underground newspaper. When a teacher saw a copy of the paper, she deemed it as pornographic; Birney says "the communication intended was successful, but the only reward we got then was the cat-of-nine-tails". He later worked as a creative writing teacher at several universities, most notably University of British Columbia (where he founded Canada's first creative writing department) and the University of Toronto. His most famous works include David and other poems, and Now is Time, both of which won him the Governor general's Literary Award in 1942 and 1945 respectively. He died in 1995.