These interact in the poems when considered as a whole. Ideas of hope, nature, and God, on the one hand, and of decay, death, and despair, on the other, weave in and out, creating an alternating pattern of tension and release. The thematic pattern is woven in a form remarkably fixed throughout all the poems. Somehow it got planted. This verse thus moves in staccato, yet the restraint of this rigid fixed form, yields surprising variety and depth.
Repetition is frequent and effective.
An excerpt from Glenn Clever 's preface to The Birch , Ottawa, September, 1970. The Birch is Frank Tierney s second volume of poems. He has also published seven children s stories in his Silly Sally series, numerous scholarly articles and books on Canadian and British authors. Frank M. Tierney was born in Ottawa in the Sandy Hill area on grounds presently occupied by the University of Ottawa Campus.