Witter Bynner

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Harold Witter Bynner (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968) was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at what is now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear.

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[edit] Early life

Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New York, and brought up in Brookline, Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1902. Initially he pursued a career in journalism at McClure's Magazine. He then turned to writing, living in Cornish, New Hampshire until about 1915.

In 1916 he was one of the perpetrators, with Arthur Davison Ficke, a friend from Harvard, of an elaborate literary hoax. It involved a purported 'Spectrist' school of poets, along the lines of the Imagists, based in Pittsburgh. Spectra, a slim collection, was published under the pseudonyms of Anne Knish (Ficke) and Emanuel Morgan (Bynner). Marjorie Allen Seiffert, writing as Elijah Hay, was roped in to bulk out the 'movement'.[1]

In early 1917 he with Ficke travelled to Japan, possibly to escape the aftermath of the Spectra affair. It was in any case the most significant poetic exchange between the USA and Japan, until after World War II.

Bynner had a short spell in academia in 1918-1919 during World War I, at the University of California, Berkeley as Professor of Oral English. There, he composed Canticle of Praise and taught classes in poetry and verse writing. He was forced to leave after serving alcohol to freshmen during Prohibition.[2]

He then travelled to China, and studied Chinese literature. He subsequently produced many translations from Chinese. His verse showed both Japanese and Chinese influences, but the latter were major. Bynner became more of a modernist in consequence, where previously he had been inclined to parody Imagism, and dismiss the orientalist pronouncements with which Ezra Pound was free.

[edit] Life and career in Sante Fe

Bynner settled in Santa Fe, in a steady and acknowledged 30-year homosexual relationship with Robert Hunt.[3] He became a friend of D. H. Lawrence, and travelled with him and Frieda von Richthofen in Mexico; he much later in 1951 wrote on Lawrence, while he and his partner Willard Johnson are portrayed in Lawrence's The Plumed Serpent. Bynner and Hunt had numerous parties at their house, hosting many notable writers, actors, and artists, which guests included Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Igor Stravinsky, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, W. H. Auden, Aldous Huxley, Clara Bow, Errol Flynn, Rita Hayworth, Christopher Isherwood, Carl Van Vechten, Martha Graham, Georgia O'Keeffe and Thornton Wilder.[3]

On January 18, 1965, Bynner had a severe stroke. He never recovered, and required constant care until he died on June 1, 1968. His papers are archived in the New Mexico State University Library.

His house is, as of 2007, the Inn of the Turquoise Bear, a bed and breakfast.[3][4][5][6][2]

[edit] Works

  • An Ode to Harvard and Other Poems (1907)
  • Tiger (1913)
  • The Little King (1914)
  • The New World (1915)
  • Iphigenia in Tauris (1916) translator
  • Spectra (1916) poems with Arthur Davison Ficke
  • Grenstone Poems (1917) poems
  • Pins for Wings
  • Canticle of Praise (1919)
  • A Canticle of Pan (1920)
  • Roots (1929) poems
  • The Jade Mountain (1929) translations from Chinese with Kiang Kang-hu
  • Indian Earth (1929) poems
  • Guest Book (1935) poems
  • Selected Poems (1943)
  • The Way of Life, according to Lao Tzu (1944)
  • Take Away the Darkness (1947)
  • Journey with Genius (1951) memoir of D. H. Lawrence
  • New Poems (1960)
  • Selected Poems (1978)

[edit] References

[edit] General links

  1. ^ William Jay Smith, The Spectra Hoax (1961).
  2. ^ a b University of California web site, Hidden History of the Berkeley Campus project page. Accessed November 25, 2007.
  3. ^ a b c Inn of the Turquoise Bear web site History page. Accessed November 25, 2007.
  4. ^ Fodor's listing. Accessed November 25, 2007.
  5. ^ Andrew Collins, Desert Rose, Travel and Leisure (magazine) Dec. 2002, found at Travel and Leisure web site. Accessed November 25, 2007.
  6. ^ Yahoo Travel Listing. Accessed November 25, 2007.

[edit] Longer texts

  • Witter Bynner: a Bibliography (1967) Robert Lindsay, University of New Mexico Press.
  • Who Was Witter Bynner? (1995) James Kraft, University of New Mexico Press.
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