Harold Witter Bynner, who published almost always as Witter Bynner and was known to friends as “Hal,” was born on 10 August 1881 in Brooklyn, New York, and died on 1 June 1968 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His long career carried him through several distinct literary eras: the cultivated, metrically formal verse of the early twentieth century; the disruptions and provocations of modernism; the American enthusiasm for Asia…
“I have come by accident into as close touch with Chinese poetry as a westerner is able to come without a knowledge of the Chinese tongue.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Imagist Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
In the pantheon of American poetry, few figures stand as simultaneously revered and controversial as Robinson Jeffers, the brooding visionary who built his stone tower on the wild coast of California and crafted verses as uncompromising as the granite cliffs that inspired them. Born John Robinson Jeffers on January 10, 1887, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he would become one of the twentieth century's most distinctive…
“If you like it, listen to it; if not, let it alone.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Death & Mortality, Modernist Poets, Nature Poets, Political Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Spirituality, Wonder