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.