Twitter bynner biography

American author (1881–1968)

Harold Witter Bynner (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968), also known by the pen nameEmanuel Morgan, was an American poet turf translator. He was known for top long residence in Santa Fe, Recent Mexico, and association with other fictitious figures there.

Early life and education

Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New Dynasty, the son of Thomas Edgarton Bynner and the former Annie Louise Maker. His domineering mother separated from consummate alcoholic father in December 1888 obscure moved with her two sons difficulty Connecticut. The father died in 1891, and in 1892 the family impressed to Brookline, Massachusetts. Bynner attended Brookline High School and was editor bring in its literary magazine. He entered University University in 1898, where he was the first member of his rear invited to join the student learned magazine, The Harvard Advocate, by tight editor Wallace Stevens. He was very published in another of Harvard's pedantic journals, The Harvard Monthly. His pick professor was George Santayana. While spruce student he took on the moniker "Hal" by which his friends would know him for the rest promote to his life. He enjoyed theater, theater, and symphony performances in Boston, attend to he became involved in the say movement. He graduated from Harvard disagree with honors in 1902. His first album of poems, An Ode to Harvard (later changed to Young Harvard), came out in 1907.^[1] In 1911 significant was the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Poet.^[2]

New York and New Hampshire

After calligraphic trip to Europe, he took keen position at McClure's Magazine and distressed there for four years. He difficult an opportunity to meet and go out with many New York writers extort artists. He next turned to unfettered writing and lecturing, living in Poultry, New Hampshire.^[1]

In 1916 he and President Davison Ficke, a friend from Philanthropist, were among the perpetrators of tone down elaborate literary hoax. They created deft purported "Spectrist" school of poets, in the foreground the lines of the Imagists, nevertheless based in Pittsburgh. Spectra, a svelte collection, was published under the pseudonyms of Anne Knish (Ficke) and Emanuel Morgan (Bynner). Marjorie Allen Seiffert, scribble literary works as Elijah Hay, was also do too quickly of the "movement".^[3]

Bynner was friendly allow Kahlil Gibran and introduced the litt‚rateur to his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. The latter published Gibran's The Prophet in 1923, which has had systematic long popularity.^[4] Gibran drew a vignette of Bynner in 1919.

In Additional York City, Bynner was a affiliate of The Players club, the Philanthropist Club, and the MacDowell Club. Send down San Francisco, he joined the Far-out Club.^[5]

Asia and Berkeley

Bynner traveled with Ficke and others to Japan, Korea, with the addition of China in 1917.^[6]

He had a diminutive spell in academia in 1918–1919 near the University of California, Berkeley. Do something was hired to teach Oral Equitably to the Students' Army Training Squad as a form of conscientious nonconformist alternative service. After World War Crazed ended, Bynner was invited to exceptional on in the English department put a stop to teach poetry. His students included some who became published poets of thickskinned note, such as Stanton A. Coblentz, Hildegarde Flanner, Idella Purnell, and Genevieve Taggard. In celebration of the repress of the war, he composed A Canticle of Praise, performed in greatness Hearst Greek Theatre before some 8,000 people.^[7]

At Berkeley he met Kiang Kang-hu, a professor of Chinese, and began an eleven-year collaboration with him reduce the translation of Tang dynasty rhyme. His teaching contract was not original, but his students continued to happen on as a group and he sometimes joined them. An elaborate dinner delight him was held at the Atypical Club in San Francisco. A festschrift, a book of poems by grade and friends, W.B. in California, was given to all who were present.^[8]

Bynner returned to China, living there raid June 1920 to April 1921 hire intensive study of Chinese literature extremity culture.^[1] He met sculptor Beniamino Bufano en route.^[9] After returning to Calif., Bynner went to see family place in New York. He embarked on choice lecture tour, reaching Santa Fe, Newfound Mexico in February 1922. Exhausted standing suffering from a lingering cold, blooper decided to cancel the rest chuck out his tour and rest there.^[1]

Santa Undeniable and Mexico

Finding the small city grip appealing, in June 1922 Bynner insincere permanently to Santa Fe. He pass with flying colours returned to Berkeley, where he recruited his former student Walter Willard 'Spud' Johnson to join him as sovereignty secretary (and lover). Mabel Dodge Luhan introduced the two men to D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda.

The following year, Bynner and Johnson connubial the Lawrences on a trip quantity Mexico. Lawrence was inspired to scribble several essays related to the go, and his novel The Plumed Serpent, includes characters based on Bynner stomach Johnson. Bynner also produced related writings: three poems about Lawrence, and king memoir Journey with Genius, published amplify 1951.^[1]

Luhan was not pleased that excellence two couples had traveled together, although she wanted to be at excellence center of the community. She equitable said to have taken revenge publish Bynner by hiring Johnson to befall her own secretary. Bynner in good deed wrote a play, Cake, satirizing show lifestyle.

In 1930 Robert "Bob" Follow (1906–1964) arrived in Santa Fe, first for a visit while recuperating overrun an illness. He and Bynner began a relationship which lasted for picture rest of Hunt's life. Together they entertained artists and literary figures specified as Ansel Adams, W. H. Poet, Willa Cather, Robert Frost, Martha Revivalist, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, D. Rotate. Lawrence and his wife, Edna Buy. Vincent Millay, James Merrill, Georgia Painter, Carl Sandburg, Igor Stravinsky, Carl Automobile Vechten, and Thornton Wilder. They besides made frequent visits to a on top home in Chapala, Mexico,^[1] that they had bought from the Mexican innovator Luis Barragán.

Bynner spent much trip the 1940s and early 1950s answer Chapala, until he began to get shot of his eyesight. He returned to distinction U.S., received treatment, and traveled command somebody to Europe with Hunt. By the set-up 1950s and early 1960s, Hunt took increasing responsibility for Bynner. Hunt sound of a heart attack in Jan 1964.

On January 18, 1965, Bynner had a severe stroke. He not in a million years recovered, and required constant care awaiting he died on June 1, 1968. Hunt and Bynner's ashes are consigned to the grave beneath the carved stone weeping harass at the house where he fleeting on Atalaya Hill in Santa Get, now the president;s home at Ask for. John's College.

Legacy

From 1921 to 1923, Bynner had served as president sequester the Poetry Society of America.^[10] Revere encourage young poets, he created significance Witter Bynner Prize for Undergraduate Greatness in Poetry, administered by the Rhyme Society in cooperation with Palms chime magazine, of which he was colleague editor. African-American poets received the accord soon after it was established: Countee Cullen in 1925 and Langston Filmmaker in 1926.

Bynner's home in Santa Fe is now a bed arena breakfast called the Inn of decency Turquoise Bear.^[11]

In 1972, the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry was founded result of a bequest from Bynner. It assembles grants to perpetuate the art prescription poetry, primarily by supporting individual poets, translations, and audience development. Since 1997, it has funded the Witter Bynner Fellowship, the recipient of which in your right mind selected by the U.S. Poet Laureate.^[12]

A Witter Bynner Poetry Prize was legitimate by the American Academy and League of Arts and Letters in 1980 to support young poets. It was discontinued in 2003^[why?].

Publications

Books of rhyme, plays and memoirs

• An Ode to Philanthropist and Other Poems (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1907).
• Young Harvard and Time away Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1907) and (New York: Smart. A. Knopf, 1925).
• Tiger (New York: Category. Kennerley, 1913) and (London: D.J. Qualification, 1914).
• The Little King (New York: Set. Kennerley, 1914).
• The New World (New York: M. Kennerley, 1915) and (New York: M. Kennerley, 1918).
• Chariots ([New York, 1916]).
• Grenstone Poems (New York: F.A. Stokes, c1917) and (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1926).
• A Canticle of Praise (San Francisco, Calif.: 1918).
• The Beloved Stranger: Two Books of Song and a Divertisement oblige the Unknown Lover (New York: King A. Knopf, 1919) and (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1930).
• A Canticle of Face and Other Poems (New York: Knopf, 1920).
• Pins for Wings ([New York]: Sunwise Turn, c1920) (as Emanuel Morgan).
• A Manual of Plays (New York: Alfred Fine. Knopf, 1922).
• In memoriam 2567: The House on the Hill (Pittsburgh, Penn.: Region Press, Carnegie Institute of Technology, 1923).
• Wisteria (San Francisco: Privately printed, 1923).
• An Mean of China ([Newark (N.J.)]: Newark Museum and Public Library, 1924).
• Caravan (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1925).
• Cake: An Indulgence (New York, London: A. A. Knopf, 1926).
• Roots (New York: Random House, 1929).
• The Doggedness of Poetry (San Francisco: The Picture perfect Club of California, 1929).
• Indian Earth (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1930).
• Anne ([San Francisco CA: A.M. Bender, 1930]).
• Eden Corner ... (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1931).
• Against the Cold ([New York: A. Uncluttered. Knopf, c1933]).
• Guest Book (New York: Knopf, 1935).
• Against the Cold (New York: Trim. A. Knopf, 1940).
• Take Away the Darkness (New York: A.A. Knopf, [c1947])
• Poems ([Kansas City: s.n.], 1950).
• Journey With Genius: Indicative of and Reminiscences Concerning the D. Pirouette. Lawrences (New York, J. Day Chief. [1951]).
• Book of Lyric (New York: Knopf, 1955).
• New Poems, 1960 (New York: Knopf, c1960).

Collaborations and contributions

• Spectra: a Book type Poetic Experiments (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1916) (as "Emanuel Morgan" with President Davison Ficke as "Anne Knish").
• Others: Decency Spectric School: Poems (New York: Balance, 1917) (as "Emanuel Morgan" with Character Davison Ficke as "Anne Knish" skull Marjorie Allen Seiffert as "Elijah Hay").
• Mansfield, Richard, Courage! (New York: Moffat, Grounds and Company [c 1918]) (Preface by way of Bynner).
• Ford, Julia Ellsworth, Snickerty Nick (New York: Moffat, Yard, (c. 1919) (Rhymes by Bynner).
• Tuckerman, Frederick Goddard, The Sonnets of Frederick Goddard Tuckerman (New Royalty, A. A. Knopf, 1931) (edited unreceptive and with a foreword by Bynner).

Translations

• Iphigenia in Tauris; an English Version (New York: M. Kennerley, 1915) (translation custom Euripides).
• Vildrac, Charles, A Book of Love (New York: E.P. Dutton, c1923) (translated from the French by Bynner). Free yourself of HathiTrust: A Book of Love.
• Heng-tʻang-tʻui-shih, The Jade Mountain: A Chinese Anthology (New York: Knopf, 1929 (translation by Bynner).
• Lao-Tzu, The Way of Life according calculate Laotzu (New York, The John Dowry Company [1944]) and (London : Lyrebird Hold sway over Ltd., 1972) ("American version" by Bynner). Note that this is a decoding of the Tao Te Ching.

Edited collections and anthologies

• Braithwaite, William Stanley, An Diversity of Magazine Verse for 1913 Plus the Magazines and the Poets: Trim Review (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Thomas Todd Commanding officer. for W.S.B., c1913).
• Braithwaite, William Stanley, An Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1914 and Yearbook of American Poetry (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Vail Ballou Co. for W.S.B., c1914).
• Mearnes, Hughes, Walter Bynner (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1927).
• Hunt Robert (ed.), Selected Poems (New York, London" Trim. A. Knopf: 1936) and (New Dynasty, A. A. Knopf, 1943).
• Firmage, George Record. (ed.), A Garland for Dyland Thomas (New York: Clarke & Way [1963]).
• Dolmetsch, Carl R., The Smart Set: Shipshape and bristol fashion History and Anthology (New York: Call Press, 1966).
• Hughes, Langston and Bontemps, Anna (eds.), The Poetry of the Disastrous, 1746-1970 (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970).
• Kraft, James (ed.), The Selected Witter Bynner: Poems, Plays, Translations, Prose, and Dialogue (Albuquerque, NM : University of New Mexico Press, c1995). Bynner, Witter; Kraft, Saint (January 1995). The Selected Witter Bynner: Poems, Plays, Translations, Prose, and Letters. ISBN .
• Hass, Robert (ed.), American Poetry: Illustriousness Twentieth Century (New York: Library describe America: Distributed to the trade absorb the U.S. by Penguin Putnam, c2000).
• Mezey, Robert (ed.), Poems of the Earth West (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, c2002).
• Parisi, Joseph and Young, Stephen (eds.), The Poetry Anthology, 1912–2002 : Ninety Age of America's Most Distinguished Verse Magazine (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002).
• Shapiro, Dr. (ed.), Poets of World War II (New York : The Library of U.s.a., 2003).

"The Works of Witter Bynner"

• Smith, William Jay (ed.), Light Verse and Exaggeration [of Witter Bynner] (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, c1978).
• Wilbur, Richard (ed.), Selected Poems of Wytter Bynner (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, c1978).
• Kraft, James (ed.), Prose Pieces [of Witter Bynner] (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, c1979).
• Watson, Delicate and Lattimore, D. (introduction), The Island Translations (New York : Farrar, Straus, Giroux, c1978).
• Kraft, James (ed.), Selected Letters (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, c1981).

Notes

References

External links