Several of Brezianu's classmates became prominent in the literary field, Vlăstarul was edited by Mircea Eliade, two years his senior, and received contributions from Eugène Ionesco, who attended another school.
His father, also named Barbu, was a lawyer at the High Court of Cassation and Justice, and the son was expected to enter the same profession.
His first volume of verse was published in 1929, which upset the father, as people thought he had written it; from then on, the son signed himself "Barbu B. Brezianu".
In 1943, with Romania and Finland finding themselves on the same side in World War II, Brezianu was a founding member of a friendship society linking the two countries.
He had pleasant recollections of the city, marred by the horror he felt at seeing hanged bodies as part of the reprisals for an explosion that killed several Romanian and German troops (see 1941 Odessa massacre).