"His carefully researched historical and biographical books and articles on Canadian poets, such as Duncan Campbell Scott, Archibald Lampman, George Frederick Cameron, William E. Marshall and Charles Sangster, have made a valuable contribution to the field of literary criticism in Canada.

Graduating in 1915, he found a position as a civil servant in Canada's Department of Indian Affairs, but almost immediately took a leave of absence to serve in World War I.

[1] Bourinot began publishing poetry as an undergraduate,[1] and brought out his first book, the slim 24-poem Laurentian Lyrics and Other Poems in December, 1915.

[2] The Encyclopedia of Literature has called him "a deft versifier enthralled with the beauty of nature, the major subject of both his poems and his paintings."

[4] During that period he began to edit and privately publish volumes of the correspondence of Scott, Lampman, and Edward William Thomson.