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Harold Witter Bynner
(August 10, 1881 - June 1, 1968) USA

Witter Bynner

Writer, scholar

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Harold Witter Bynner, also known by the pen name Emanuel Morgan, (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968) was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and association with other literary figures there.

Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Thomas Edgarton Bynner and the former Annie Louise Brewer. His domineering mother separated from his alcoholic father in December 1888 and moved with her two sons to Connecticut. The father died in 1891, and in 1892 the family moved to Brookline, Massachusetts. Bynner attended Brookline High School and was editor of its literary magazine.

He entered Harvard University in 1898, where he was the first member of his class invited to join the student literary magazine, The Advocate , by its editor Wallace Stevens. He was also published in another of Harvard's literary journals, The Harvard Monthly . He enjoyed theater, opera, and symphony performances in Boston, and he became involved in the suffrage movement. He graduated from Harvard with honors in 1902. His first book of poems, An Ode to Harvard (later changed to Young Harvard) , came out in 1907.

After a trip to Europe, he took a position at McClure's Magazine and remained there for four years, meeting and socializing with many New York writers and artists. He then turned to independent writing and lecturing, living in Cornish, New Hampshire.

In New York, Bynner was a member of The Players club, the Harvard Club, and the MacDowell Club. In San Francisco, he joined the Bohemian Club.

Bynner traveled with Ficke and others to Japan, Korea and China in 1917. In celebration of the end of the World War, he composed A Canticle of Praise, performed in the Hearst Greek Theatre before some eight thousand people. He met professor of Chinese Kiang Kang-hu and began an eleven-year collaboration with him on the translation of T'ang Dynasty poems.

His teaching contract was not renewed, but his students continued to meet as a group and he occasionally joined them. An elaborate dinner honoring him was held at the Bohemian Club in San Francisco and a book of poems by students and friends, W.B. in California, was given to all who were present. After another trip to Berkeley, where he enlisted his former student Walter Willard 'Spud' Johnson to join him as his secretary (and lover), in June 1922 he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Mabel Dodge Luhan was not pleased about their trip, and she is said to have taken revenge on Bynner by hiring Johnson to be her own secretary. In 1930 Robert "Bob" Hunt (1906-1964) arrived, originally for a visit while recuperating from an illness, but he stayed on as Bynner's lifelong companion. Hunt died of a heart attack in January 1964.

Bynner served as president of the Poetry Society of America from 1921 to 1923. To encourage young poets, he created the Witter Bynner Prize for Undergraduate Excellence in Poetry, administered by the Poetry Society in cooperation with Palms poetry magazine, of which he was associate editor. Two recipients of the award were Countee Cullen in 1925 and Langston Hughes in 1926.

On January 18, 1965, Bynner had a severe stroke. He never recovered, and required constant care until he died. Hunt and Bynner's ashes are buried beneath the carved stone weeping dog at the house where he lived on Atalaya Hill in Santa Fe, now used as the president's home for St. John's College.

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Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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