Robert Hunt (poet)
Robert Nichols Montague Hunt (May 19, 1906 – January 18, 1964) was an American poet and long-time partner of Witter Bynner.
Early life
He was born in Pasadena, CA, on May 19, 1906, the son of architect Myron Hunt and his wife Harriette Boardman. Robert worked briefly for his father (Robert was a talented designer), and indeed he is responsible for adding a wing to Bynner's home in Santa Fe, now a bed and breakfast called the Inn of the Turquoise Bear, and to alter their Chapala's home (the home was purchased from Mexican architect Luis Barragán), as well as redesigning the living room of Peter Hurd's ranch in San Patricio, New Mexico.[1]
Career
Hunt is the author of a collection of 18 poems, "The Early World and other poems", dedicated to Witter Bynner, and also edited Bynner's "Selected Poems".[1]
Personal life
Hunt and Bynner first met in 1924 through introduction by twice History Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Horgan. They met again in Santa Fe in 1926 and in Los Angeles in 1928. In 1930 Hunt arrived in Santa Fe again, originally for a visit while recuperating from a stress related illness, but he stayed on as Bynner's lifelong companion.[2] The relationship lasted until Hunt sudden death by heart attack in 1964.[1]
During WWII Hunt could not serve due to his health issues, but he served on the local draft board for a year. In early 1943 he left Bynner in Chapala, Mexico, and went to work on the docks in San Francisco to assist the war effort.[1]
In 1950, Bynner and Hunt toured Europe, visiting, among others, Thornton Wilder and James Baldwin in Paris, and George Santayana and Sybille Bedford in Rome.[1]
Bynner and Hunt's ashes are buried beneath a carved stone weeping dog at the house where they lived on Atalaya Hill in Santa Fe.[1]