Coman Leavenworth was a published poet before the war. He had studied at Columbia University. During the war he met airman Edward Field, who later became a poet.



In an interview Field gave in 2017 to Westbeth Artists Housing, he recalls: "It was from him [Coman Leavenworth] that I heard about Dunstan Thompson because Coman used to go to London to the Gargoyle Club, which was a literary hangout, and he would come back and tell me about all the writers he’d met."