Can.Hist. by Earle Birney

As a people, we have not been concerned until very recently with teaching Canadian literature to Canadian students, though some teachers make an effort to include short stories like "The Wedding Gift" by Thomas Raddell, or poems like "M. Joliat" by Wilson MacDonald.  For the next 3 days I will post poems by Earle Birney for you

Can. Hist.

Once upon a colony

there was a land that was

almost a real

country called Canada. 

But people began to

Feel

different

and no longer Acadien

or French

and rational but

Canadién

and Mensch

and passional. 

Also no longer English

but Canadian

and national

(though some were less specific

-ally Canadian

Pacific)

After that it was fashionable

for a time to be International. 

But now we are all quite

grown up & fir

mly agreed to assert our right

not to be Amer

-icans,   perhaps

though on the other hand

not ever to be

unamerican

(except for the French

who still want to be Mensch)

Earle Birney, Canadian Poet, 1904-1995

written while the poet was in New Orleans in 1962