The bisexual poet H.D., whose full name was Hilda Doolittle, was born on Sept. 10, 1886, in Bethlehem, Pa., to a wealthy upper- middleclass family. A contemporary of the American poet Ezra Pound, with whom she was involved at one point, she became a great Imagist poet, who at the end of her writing career broke with strict Imagism. She received literary awards including the Gold Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and, later in life, the Brandeis and Longview Awards.
Hilda attended the Ivy League women’s college Bryn Mawr, but dropped out and moved to England in 1911. Her romance with Ezra Pound had ended, but he introduced her to London's avant garde literary circles. She married the novelist Richard Aldington in 1913.
The Imagist poets believed in direct treatment of the subject, allowing no inessential words and following the musical phrase rather than strict, traditional regularity in their rhythms. H.D.'s first published poems appeared in the journal Poetry in January 1913.
H.D. was fascinated by ancient Greek culture, and now she began to travel throughout Europe and saw Greece for the first time. Her poetry appeared in the English Review, the Transatlantic Review, and the Egoist. She also began an intense but non-sexual relationship with novelist D.H. Lawrence, and her marriage became troubled. (Her novel "Bid Me to Live" is largely about this time.)
She lived downstairs from her husband's mistress, and was introduced to a friend of the Lawrences, Cecil Gray, who became the father of her daughter, Frances Perdita, named for H.D.'s first great love and lifelong friend, Frances Gregg, and for the lost daughter of Hermione in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. The birth left H.D. very ill, but a woman named Bryher came to her rescue.
Bryher, born Annie Winifred Ellerman, met H.D. on July 17, 1918 in Cornwall. She took the name Bryher from one of the fabled Scilly Isles, located to the west of Cornwall and site of many ancient legends and megalithic stone monuments. A wealthy heiress who was also a writer, her friendship with H.D. blossomed into love. They were lifelong companions, although often maintaining separate residences and their independence. They travelled together and kept their relationship throughout their other affairs, and throughout Bryher's marriages to Robert McAlmon and Kenneth Macpherson.
The two women moved to Paris, mingling with the expatriate literary community. After Bryher's marriage to McAlmon ended, and the one to Macpherson began, they were drawn into the world of film. Bryher and Macpherson began POOL Productions and the film magazine Close-Up. H.D. appeared in the POOL films productions Foothills (1927) and Borderline (1930), which received their most enthusiastic reception in Germany.
H.D. and Bryher lived at this time in Kenwin, the Bauhaus home Bryher had built near Riant Chateau in Switzerland. H.D. sought out analysis, and Bryher, an early supporter of psychoanalysis, arranged for Dr. Hanns Sachs and Havelock Ellis to recommend H.D. to Sigmund Freud. H.D. referred to herself as Freud's pupil, and he referred to her as his analysand, during 1933 and 1934. H.D. later wrote "Tribute to Freud" as a fictionalized memoir of this period.
Her interests at this time also included mysticism, Hellenic studies, Egyptology, and astrology. Her long poem “Helen in Egypt” reflected those interests. She and Bryher were able to get to London when World War II broke out; Bryher barely escaped Switzerland before helping over a hundred refugees to homes in other countries.
The years during World War II were very productive for H.D. She and Bryher lived together during this time. H.D. became very interested in spiritualism, and her poetry began to strain at the boundaries of Imagism. "The Walls Do Not Fall," the first part of "Trilogy," was her break with Imagism.
After the war, H.D. suffered a mental breakdown, and returned to Switzerland. She lived at Kusnacht, a clinic, and various hotels. She was now 60, yet was experiencing the most prolific writing years of her life. Her book “Hermetic Definition” (1972, New Directions) contains the angel-haunted poems of her old age. Other books include “Selected Poems of H.D.” (1957, Grove Press) and “Trilogy” (1973, New Directions).
In July 1961 she suffered a stroke and died on Sept. 21, 1961. She was buried on Nisky Hill, in Bethlehem, Pa., among her family. She was survived by Bryher, her daughter and son-in-law, her grandchildren and many other family members and friends.
H. Hernandez writes, “Her gravestone lies flat in Nisky Hill Cemetery… and usually has sea shells on it, left in tribute. It bears lines from her poem ‘Epitaph’:
…So you may say,
Greek flower;
Greek ecstasy
reclaims forever
one who died
following intricate song's
lost measure.
H.D.”