"H. D." (Hilda Doolittle)

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Born at Bethlehem, Pa., Sept. 10, 1886. Educated at the Gordon School and the Friends' Central School of Philadelphia and at Bryn Mawr College. Miss Doolittle went to Europe in 1911 and, after a tour of the Continent, settled down in London, where she was soon caught into the current of the poetic movement then shaping itself under the innovating genius of Ezra Pound and a little band of his fellow poets. Under this stimulus Miss Doolittle began to write those brief, sharply carved poems, purely Greek in their chastity and mood, of which the first group appeared in `Poetry' for Jan., 1913, under the name of "H. D. — Imagist". Among the London poets interested in experiments with new forms was Richard Aldington, whose own inspiration came largely from the Greek, and in October of 1913 he and Miss Doolittle were married and the work of both appeared in the little volume, "Des Imagistes", published in New York in April, 1914. This was the first grouping of the Imagist school, whose work, without that of Ezra Pound, its founder, who withdrew from the movement, continued for several years to appear in America under the title of "Some Imagist Poets". Since then one volume of "H. D.'s" own work has been published, "Sea Garden", London and Boston, 1917. For the finest and most comprehensive study of "H. D.'s" work see "Tendencies in Modern American Poetry", by Amy Lowell, 1917.