In the landscape of early twentieth-century English letters, few figures embodied such versatility and contradiction as Clifford Lea Bax. Born on July 13, 1886, in Upper Tooting, south London, into an affluent family that would nurture two remarkable artistic talents, Bax lived until November 18, 1962, leaving behind a body of work that, while often overshadowed by more celebrated contemporaries, offers a fascinating…
“The quiet of the countryside is not the silence of emptiness, but the profound harmony of living things.”
Neighbourhood:
Dramatic Poets, Edwardian Poets, Georgian Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Peace, Tenderness
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…
“There is no question that but for this bravery, this heat on behalf of man's better nature, there would not be in the hearts of the poets so fine a crucible for their more personal alchemies.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Imagist Poets, LGBTQ+ Poets, Modernist Poets
Emotional landscape: Wonder, Longing, Spirituality