Books in Brief: H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet

H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet, by Janice S. Robinson (Houghton Mifflin, 490 pp., $17.95).

In 1916, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) published a poem entitled “Sheltered Garden,” which ended: “O to blot out this garden / to forget, to find a new beauty / in some terrible / wind-tortured place.” In many ways that deceptively simple quatrain says as much about H.D.’s life and art as an epic poem. Her childhood in a Philadelphia suburb was sheltered and quite religious (Moravian Protestant). When she went to London in 1911, expecting to marry Ezra Pound, she wanted a “new beauty.” The “terrible wind-tortured place” she sought was the world of experience:

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H.D.: The Life and Work of an American Poet, by Janice S. Robinson (Houghton Mifflin, 490 pp., $17.95).

In 1916, H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961) published a poem entitled “Sheltered Garden,” which ended: “O to blot out this garden / to forget, to find a new beauty / in some terrible / wind-tortured place.” In many ways that deceptively simple quatrain says as much about H.D.’s life and art as an epic poem. Her childhood in a Philadelphia suburb was sheltered and quite religious (Moravian Protestant). When she went to London in 1911, expecting to marry Ezra Pound, she wanted a “new beauty.” The “terrible wind-tortured place” she sought was the world of experience: