Day 194: 7/14/11-Learn about the Poetry of H.D.

Day 194: 7/14/11
New Thing: Learn about the Poetry of H.D.
Inspiration: PA Historical Markers 
Cost: $0
Time: About a half hour                 
Bottom Line: She was a home town poet and I didn't know it. (You are very welcome for that line.)

Reflection: One of the things that I have inhered from my father is an inability to pass a historical marker without wanting to read it. I love these things--the history they speak of that happened in the exact spot the reader stands on, the way each moment is capture to give the scope of the people, places and events that helped to carve out who we are as a nation, the way they always seem to hint that there is even more to the story behind the marker which is to large to be captured in one sign. There is one such marker (well actually several) that I have often passed on my morning runs and always pledged to learn more about, but never did--until to day! It stands outside the Bethlehem Public Library and speaks about the poet Hilda Doolittle. Here is the marker:

Intriguing, yes?

Like I said, these markers always seem to hint that there is so much more to know about the subjects they commemorate. And that was certainly the case with H.D. Here is just a small portion of the interesting things I found out about her, but please go to her wikipedia page (at least!) to learn more:

Her gave at our local graveyard.

Hilda Doolittle was born into the Moravian community in Bethlehem in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. Her father, Charles Doolittle, was professor of astronomy at Lehigh University and her mother, Helen (Wolle), was a Moravian with a strong interest in music. She was an American poet, novelist and memoirist known for her association with the early 20th century avant-garde Imagist group of poets. The Imagist model was based on the idioms, rhythms and clarity of common speech, and freedom to choose subject matter as the writer saw fit. H.D.'s later writing developed on this aesthetic to incorporate a more female-centric version of modernism. Her ashes were returned to Bethlehem, and were buried in the family plot in the Nisky Hill Cemetery on October 28, 1961. Her epitaph consists of the following lines from her early poem "Let Zeus Record."

Here is one of my favorites: 

MYSTERIES REMAIN

The mysteries remain,
I keep the same
cycle of seed-time
and of sun and rain;
Demeter in the grass,
I multiply,
renew and bless
Bacchus in the vine;
I hold the law,
I keep the mysteries true,
the first of these
to name the living, dead;
I am the wine and bread.

I keep the law,
I hold the mysteries true,
I am the vine,
the branches, you,
and you.