Hilda “H.D.” Doolittle (1886 – 1961) was an American poet, novelist, and memoirist, born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania in 1886. She moved to London in 1911, where she played a central role within the emerging Imagist movement. A charismatic figure, she was championed by the modernist poet Ezra Pound, who was instrumental in building and furthering her career. From 1916–17, she acted as the literary editor of the Egoist journal, while her poetry appeared in the English Review and the Transatlantic Review. During the First World War, H.D. suffered the death of her brother and the breakup of her marriage to the poet Richard Aldington, and these events weighed heavily on her later poetry. Imagist authority Glenn Hughes wrote that ‘her loneliness cries out from her poems’. She had a deep interest in Ancient Greek literature, and her poetry often borrowed from Greek mythology and classical poets. Her work is noted for its incorporation of natural scenes and objects, which are often used to emote a particular feeling or mood. She befriended Sigmund Freud during the 1930s, and became his patient in order to understand and express her bisexuality, her residual war trauma, her writing, and her spiritual experiences.  She was unapologetic about her sexuality, and thus became an icon for both the LGBT rights and feminist movements when her poems, plays, letters and essays were rediscovered during the 1970s and 1980s.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia

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