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…
“For our taste, used as we are to the operatic in poetry, the substance of Chinese poems seems often mild or even trivial.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Imagist Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality
1 live poem · Mandarin Chinese
Meng Haoran, one of the defining poets of China’s High Tang age, was born around 689 or 690 and died in 740. His life unfolded during the long and brilliant reign of Emperor Xuanzong, an era remembered for imperial confidence, commercial vitality, religious pluralism, and an extraordinary flowering of poetry. Yet Meng’s achievement is distinctive precisely because he did not chiefly write about the glitter of the cap…
Neighbourhood:
Chinese Poets, Classical & Ancient Poets, Classical Chinese Poets, Nature Poets
Emotional landscape: Peace, Wonder, Sensuality
