Don Blanding

Donald Benson Blanding (November 7, 1894 – June 9, 1957) was an American poet who sentimentalized warm climates and was sometimes described as "poet laureate of Hawaii". He was also known as a journalist, author of prose, and speaker.

Life
Blanding was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma (during the period as a territory prior to that state's creation). He trained between 1913 and 1915 at the Art Institute of Chicago.

He enlisted (for a year, or the duration of World War I plus up to six months) in the Canadian Army's 97th ("American Legion") Battalion. He then trained with them for trench warfare for eight months in 1916, but leaving service under unknown circumstances a few days before the unit shipped out for Europe. (He omitted reference to that service and training a year later in joining the U.S. military.)

Blanding soon became suddenly fascinated by Hawaii and traveled there, staying for ayear until his enlistment in the U.S. Army in December, 1917. Entering as an infantry private, he underwent officer training and was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant before being discharged in December, 1918, soon after the Armistice.

He pursued further art studies in 1920, in Paris and London, traveled in Central America and the Yucatan, and resumed living in Honolulu in 1921. Finding work as an artist in an advertising agency, he happened into two years of writing poems published daily in the Honolulu Star Bulletin for an advertiser. These featured local people and events, and became well-known and popular – whether because of or in spite of always mentioning the Aji-No-Moto brand of MSG.

The popularity of these ad-poems led Blanding to follow the advice of newspaper colleagues by publishing a collection of his poetry in 1923. When his privately published edition of 2000 copies quickly sold out, he followed it with a commercially published edition the same year, and with additional verse and prose books. For his fifth book in 1928, he no longer used a local or West Coast publisher, but the New York publisher Dodd, Mead & Company. The result, Vagabond's House, was reviewed promptly by the New York Times, and was a great commercial success. By 1948 it went through nearly fifty printings in several editions that together sold over 150,000 copies.

In 1927, he suggested and founded the annual holiday, Lei Day, in Hawaii. While he remained strongly attached to Hawaii, his connections to the world of celebrities drew him often to the mainland, and his income made hotel life and multiple residences feasible. During his high-school years in Lawton, Oklahoma, he is said to have saved the life of a 7- or 8-year-old neighbor, Lucille "Billie" Cassin, by picking her up and telephoning for a doctor, when she had jumped off her porch and deeply cut her foot on a broken milk bottle. Cassin eventually took the stage name of Joan Crawford, and their reacquaintance in 1936 on the set of The Gorgeous Hussy, which starred her, suggests the level of his own celebrity.

Blanding married Dorothy Binney Putnam, a socialite, on June 13, 1940, and they lived in Fort Pierce, Florida. They divorced in June 1947, and he had no descendants.

Blanding was strongly affected by U.S. entry into World War II, including the knowledge of his island paradise as a military target, the reactions of those he met on his lecture tours, and the fall of Bataan. Bataan surrendered April 9, 1942, while he was on tour, and he wrote "Bataan Falls", 16 emotional lines in response. On April 25, he enlisted as a private at the age of 47. He served eleven months in the 1208th Service Corps Unit, Infantry, and was discharged as a corporal.

He died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles on June 9, 1957 at the age of 62.

"Vagabond's House"
He published his long poem "Vagabond's House" several times. (It was in the first, private, printing of Leaves from a Grass-House in 1923; the commercially published edition of the same book, later that year, included it with the title changed to "Aloha House". In 1928 he restored the original "Vagabond's House" title, making it the title poem of another collection.) Its detailed fantasy begins
 * When I have a house – as I sometime may –
 * I'll suit my fancy in every way.

then describes a home filled with the mostly exotic mementos its poet collected in years of wandering the world's seaports – or at least might have collected if his travels had not interfered – and closes by admitting
 * It's just a dream house anyway.

Publications

 * Leaves from a Grass-House. Honolulu: privately published, ca.1923.
 * 3rd edition, Honolulu: H.T. Patten Co., 1923.
 * Hilo, HI: Petroglyph Press, Ltd., 1978.
 * Paradise Loot (cover and illustrated by author). Honolulu: H.T. Patten Co., 1925.
 * Hilo, HI: Petroglyph Press, Ltd., 1978
 * Flowers of the Rainbow (illustrated). Honolulu: Honolulu Star-Bulletin, ca.1926.
 * The Virgin of Waikiki – 1926
 * Vagabond's House (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1928.
 * Leatherbound 25th edition. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., [1940?].
 * Hula Moons (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1930.
 * The Virgin of Waikiki: A Torrid Tragedy of the Tropics (by "Don"; illustrated). New York: Henry M. Snyder, 1930.
 * (illustrated by A.B. Butler, Jr.). New York: H.M. Snyder, 1933.
 * Stowaways in Paradise; Two Boy Adventurers in Hawaii (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1931.
 * Songs of the Seven Senses (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1931.
 * Let Us Dream (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1933.
 * The Picture Bridge (illustrated by Frank M. Moore). Pasadena, CA: Huntington Hotel, 1933.
 * Memory Room (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1935.
 * Pictures of Paradise; Moods and Moments in Hawaii (word pictures by Don Blanding, camera studies [set in] by Frank S. Warren). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1936
 * The Rest of the Road (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1937
 * A Talisman, from a Window in Vagabond's House. Carmel, CA: Carmel Pine Cone, 1938.
 * Drifter's Gold (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1939.
 * Floridays (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1941.
 * Port Salerno, FL: Florida Classics Library, 1977.
 * Pilot Bails Out (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1943.
 * Today is Here (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1946.
 * In an Old Hawaiian Garden; An Album of Hawaii's Flowers (word pictures by Don Blanding, floral pictures by T.J. Mundorff). Honolulu: R. Allen Watkins, 3rd edition, 1947. (1st ed. 1943 and 2nd ed. 1945 do not contain Blanding's verse.)
 * Mostly California (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1948
 * A Grand Time Living (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1950.
 * Joy is an Inside Job (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1953.
 * Hawaii Says Aloha (illustrated by author). New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1955.
 * Colorful Hawaii (color photos with verse by Don Blanding). Berkeley, CA: Mike Roberts, 1956.
 * ''West of the Sunset (illustrated by author). Selection of best verses ca. 1928-1966. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1966.
 * No Strings on Tomorrow – Unpublished

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy My Glass Duchess.