Scholarly and Creative Works about H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

Why H.D.?

See this interview with Susan Stanford Friedman, with Michael Coyle and Jane Pinchin, Colgate University

Advice for Readers New to H.D.

• For information about H.D.’s life, see our biography page.
• A good place to start reading about H.D.’s writing is the H.D. section of the Multimedia Companion to the Anthology of Modern American Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2000) by Marsha Bryant.
• H.D.: Woman and Poet (edited by Michael King, Orono, Maine: National Poetry Foundation, University of Maine at Orono, c1986; ISBN #0-915032-69-4)
• Signets: Reading H.D. (edited by Susan Stanford Friedman and Rachel Blau DuPlessis, U of Wisconsin P, 1990).
• To set up a Google Scholar alert for H.D., click here

Critical Bibliographies

• The Modern American Poetry Web site includes a brief bibliography of criticism by Marsha Bryant.
• Michael Boughn’s descriptive bibliography, H.D.: A Bibliography, 1905-1990 (Charlottesville, Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, UP of Virginia, 1993; ISBN #0813914124) lists much of the criticism published prior to 1990.
• This page contains a beginner’s bibliography of criticism: Literaryhistory.com.

Periodicals of Interest

• H.D.’s Web, an e-newsletter 2007-2011
• H.D. Newsletter, 1987-1991
• Sagetrieb (1981-2014; ISSN #0735-4665, published by the National Poetry Foundation at the University of Maine, Orono, Maine).
• Paideuma, 1971-present, also published by the National poetry Foundation, devoted to the study of H.D., Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and their circle.
• Iowa Review, H.D. centennial issue. (Information contributed by Lisa Simon.)
• For a list of other special issues of periodicals, see the introduction to Annette Debo and Lara Vetter’s Approaches to Teaching H.D.’s Poetry and Prose (New York: MLA Press, 2011).

Online Articles and Reviews

• Louis Silverstein’s “Planting the Seeds: Selections from the H.D. Chronology.“
• Catherine Aldington Guillaume’s Poet on the Couch : H.D. with Freud
• Charlotte Mandel’s “Beautiful Dreamers: Helen in Egypt and The Sleeping Beauty”
• Charlotte Mandel’s “Garbo/Helen: The Self-projection of Beauty by H.D.”
• Charlotte Mandel’s “Letters Across the Atlantic : H.D., Bryher, May Sarton, During World War II”
• Charlotte Mandel’s “Magical lenses: poet’s vision beyond the naked eye”
• Charlotte Mandel’s “The Redirected Image : Cinematic Dynamics in the Style of H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)”
• Charlotte Mandel’s Review of H.D.’s The Gift 
• Marilyn Hacker’s “Brooks, H.D., and Rukeyser: Three Women Poets of the First Century of World Wars”

Creative Works Inspired by H.D. 

• Select the “Creative Inspiration” Category for recent posts about works inspired by H.D.
• Jane Augustine’s High Desert (Dos Madres Press, 2019) includes visionary poetry influenced by feminist thought and H.D.
• Finn Ó Branagáin’s one-woman monologue play, What are the Islands to Me (2019), was first performed at the University of Pottsdam in Berlin in 2020.
• Robin McCarthy’s “Dead or Alive with H.D. in Bethlehem, PA” in Pank, 15 Oct. 2014
• Hilda and Freud, Collected Words, promenade play performed by the Brazilian company, Unconscious on Stage at the UK Freud Museum in 2013
• Amy Evan’s The Sea Quells includes poems directly engaged with H.D.’s Sea Garden (Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2013). See a sample of poems here
• Robert Duncan’s The H.D. Book (Berkeley: UC Press, 2012)
• Joan Jonas, Lines in the Sand (Performance). See installation stills and and performance video at the Brooklyn Museum
• “An Exchange between Joan Jonas, Susan Howe, and Jeanne Heuving” in How2
• The H.D. Trilogy Film, directed by Larry Jordan (1990) is available from MUBI. It features poet Joanna McClure in a Mediterranean village, reading excerpts from Hermetic Definition among other texts. View a sample scene here.
• Hilda’s Book, a film by Frank Wintle
• Stephen Collis, “At the Bottom of Avon River: A Partial Alphabet of Objects for Louis Zukofsky and H.D.” from the Electronic Poetry Center
• Video Presentation of “A Photograph: Hilda Doolittle” from the University of Athens
• “Writing through Imagism” episode of Poem Talk (#36)
• Art exhibit by Oriole Farb Feshbach: H.D.’s Triology at the R. Michelson Galleries

H.D. on Radio and Television

• Podcast from Poem Talk #84 “The I as Hieroglyph: H.D., Helen in Egypt” with Julia Bloch, Dee Morris, Annette Debo, and host Al Filreis (27 Jan. 2015).
• Radio Interview on AshevilleFM’s WordPlay radio show with Annette Debo, discussing Within the Walls and What Do I Love (22 Jun. 2014) 
• Segment on BBC’s The Culture Show 18: “Wars of the Heart” (2013)

Latest Publications

• “Queer Kinship Among the Stars: H.D., Silvia Dobson, and Astrology” by Victoria Papa in Modernism/modernity Plus
• “Signets Reborn: H.D.’s Serpent-and-Thistle Signet Ring and Louvre Museum Item Number BJ 1212” by Graham Borland identifies the source of H.D.’s Signets imagery
• The Gift by H.D.: The Complete Text Now Available in Paperback
• The Butterfly Hatch: Literary Experience in the Quest for Wisdom, Uncanonically Seating H.D.