Short biography of the 20th Century poet, translator, playwright and philanthropist. Bynner was also co-conspirator of the 1916 literary spoof The Spectra Poems.
Early Days
Harold “Hal” Witter Bynner was born in Brooklyn, New York on August 10, 1881. Raised in Massachusetts, he attended Harvard and graduated in 1902. Among his many college friends were future U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and fellow poet Wallace Stevens.
Following Harvard, Bynner pursued the life of a literary man and moved to New York to work for McClure’s Magazine. He also wrote poems and plays. Always a prankster, in 1916 Bynner became involved in an elaborate literary joke with fellow Harvard alum Arthur Davison Ficke. Bynner and Ficke were less than enthused with the burgeoning Imagist and Vorticist schools of poetry and decided to create their own fake movement called the Spectrists. "Spectrists" Bynner and Ficke published their first volume of exaggeratedly free verse poems under pseudonyms and were quite a secret sensation -- until the hoax was exposed in 1918.
Teaching and Translation
Following a trip to Japan, Bynner took a professorial position at the University of California Berkeley’s Students Army Training Corp in 1918. Ahead of his time in free-spirited college teaching methods, Bynner preferred to hold class outdoors and even after the training unit had closed following World War I, he continued to entertain and interact with his students. His serving of alcoholic beverages at his home during the era of early Prohibition led to outrage from the prudent University administration.
A translation project of 18th Century Chinese verse with fellow poet Kiang Kang-hu led to the publication of The Jade Mountain in 1929. Bynner was quite fond of Asian culture and it began to influence his work and personal style. As described by the then-aspiring poet Horace Gregory, Bynner was personable and magnetic, sitting on the floor with a cup of tea recounting tales of China and captivating everyone with his charm. Bynner was also always encouraging to other young writers and poets and never lost his ability to understand and nurture early enthusiasms.
New Mexico
In the early 1920s, Bynner took up residence in New Mexico and joined the community of artists and Bohemians such as Georgia O’Keeffe, D.H. Lawrence and Mabel Dodge Luhan that had begun to form in the Taos-Santa Fe area. He later traveled to Mexico with D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda and wrote about the experience in his 1951 memoir Journey with Genius. Conversely, Bynner was portrayed as the character Owen Rhys in Lawrence’s novel The Plumed Serpent.
Not one to hide his true colors, Bynner lived in an openly gay relationship with partner Robert Hunt in New Mexico for many years. His former home is now a Santa Fe bed and breakfast known as The Inn of The Turquoise Bear.
Legacy
In 1965, Bynner suffered a stroke that affected his health and independent spirit severely. He found death a relief three years later at the age of 86, with his last words reportedly being, “Other people die, why can’t I?” Hal Bynner’s philanthropic and welcoming spirit continues through a foundation in his name as well as a coveted poetry fellowship.
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Sources
Witter Bynner Poetry Foundation – Witter Bynner Biography
The Works of Witter Bynner: Light Verse and Satires – Introduction by William Jay Smith (Farrar Straus Giroux, New York)
Witter Bynner – Gay Bears: The Hidden History of the Berkeley Campus
Inn of the Turquoise Bear - Santa Fe, New Mexico
