Bynner, Witter, 1881-1968, American poet, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., grad. Harvard, 1902. As a poet Bynner had a remarkable facility for catching the cadences of other writers and cultures. Under the pseudonym Emanuel Morgan he collaborated with Arthur Davidson Ficke in writing
Spectra (1917), a book parodying contemporary poetic vogues such as imagism;
Spectra was for a time considered a serious work (see
literary frauds). With Dr. Kaing Kung-Ho, Bynner translated 300 Chinese poems published in
The Jade Mountain (1929). His other works include several plays and essays; a reminiscence of D. H. Lawrence,
Journey with Genius (1951); and such volumes of poetry as
Grenstone Poems (1917),
Indian Earth (1929),
Selected Poems (1943),
Take Away the Darkness (1947), and
New Poems (1960).
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