D is for Doolittle (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 4)
Hilda Doolittle, 1886-1961
photo of the poet known simply as H.D. in the 1910s
4 [from The Walls Do Not Fall (1944)]
There is a spell, for instance,
in every sea-shell:
continuous, the seathrust
is powerless against coral,
bone stone marble
hewn from within by that craftsman,
the shell-fish:
oyster, clam, mollusc
is master-mason planning
the stone marvel:
yet that flabby, amorphous hermit
within, like the planet
senses the finite,
it limits its orbit
of being, its house,
temple, fane, shrine:
it unlocks the portals
at stated intervals:
prompted by hunger,
it opens to the tide-flow:
but infinity? no,
of nothing-too-much:
I sense my own limit,
my shell-jaws snap shut
at invasion of the limitless,
ocean-weight; infinite water
can not crack me, egg in egg-shell;
closed in, complete, immortal
full-circle, I know the pull
of the tide, the lull
as well as the moon;
the octopus-darkness
is powerless against
her cold immortality;
so I in my own way know
that the whale
can not digest me:
be firm in your own small, static, limited
orbit and the shark-jaws
of outer circumstances
will spit you forth:
be indigestible, hard, ungiving
so that, living within,
you beget, self-out-of-self,
selfless,
that pearl-of-great-price.
* * *
Sheltered Garden
I have had enough.
I gasp for breath.
Every way ends, every road,
every foot-path leads at last
to the hill-crest —
then you retrace your steps,
or find the same slope on the other side,
precipitate.
I have had enough —
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,
herbs, sweet-cress.
O for some sharp swish of a branch —
there is no scent of resin
in this place,
no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,
aromatic, astringent —
only border on border of scented pinks.
Have you seen fruit under cover
that wanted light —
pears wadded in cloth,
protected from the frost,
melons, almost ripe,
smothered in straw?
Why not let the pears cling
to the empty branch?
All your coaxing will only make
a bitter fruit —
let them cling, ripen of themselves,
test their own worth,
nipped, shrivelled by the frost,
to fall at last but fair
with a russet coat.
Or the melon —
let it bleach yellow
in the winter light,
even tart to the taste —
it is better to taste of frost —
the exquisite frost —
than of wadding and of dead grass.
For this beauty,
beauty without strength,
chokes out life.
I want wind to break,
scatter these pink-stalks,
snap off their spiced heads,
fling them about with dead leaves —
spread the paths with twigs,
limbs broken off,
trail great pine branches,
hurled across the melon-patch,
break pear and quince —
leave half-trees, torn, twisted
but showing the fight was valiant.
O to blot out this garden
to forget, to find a new beauty
in some terrible
wind-tortured place.
* * *
To read Wikipedia's interesting biography of H.D., click here.
To check out the H.D. home page at imagists.org click here.
I also recommend these books available through Amazon:
Categories: Poetry by Others, Favorite Poets from A to Z
i gotta vote for bob dylan as best "d" poet.
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Thanks, Smith. I do dig Dylan a lot. For a few reasons, though, I decided to rank him second. Emily Dickinson comes in third for me.
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Translate please.
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Thanks for stopping by, Terese! I'll try to return and give some of my thoughts and impressions when I'm not so rushed. Getting ready for a poetry reading and trying to do a dozen other things at the same time....
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JC, I love the feminine yet bold voice in both these poems. Her imagery is honest and unflinching, and without cliche. I was especially drawn to
the lines
"so I in my own way know
that the whale
can not digest me:
be firm in your own small, static, limited
orbit and the shark-jaws
of outer circumstances
will spit you forth:
be indigestible, hard"
(such good advice, stated beautifully)
and I also liked
"I have had enough —
border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lilies,
herbs, sweet-cress.
O for some sharp swish of a branch —
there is no scent of resin
in this place,
no taste of bark, of coarse weeds,
aromatic, astringent —
only border on border of scented pinks."
She expresses the longing for different so precisely.
I would have loved to hear her read her poems aloud. Guess I will have to settle for reading a book of her poems myself (unless you would like to post a video of you reading one of H.D.'s poems, she said wistfully--lol). Thank you for yet another educational and entertaining poetry blog!
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Thank you, Dianne!
I couldn't find video of her; but here's a site where you can at least hear her voice - reading excerpts from her Helen in Egypt: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/HD.html .
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i love these and will be back soon to comment some more. i'm digesting.
while i'm crazy for dylan and love dickenson, i'm glad you went with doolittle, because i was, until now, completely unfamiliar with her work.
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Thanks, mb! If you'd like to read more, I just discovered her Hymen collection available for free online here: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/doolittle/hymen/hymen.html. I plan to add some of her stuff to my online library, too, when I have time. But because of the length of her career, some of her work is in the public domain and some isn't, and I haven't totally figured out the cut-off point yet. In England and Canada (which go by her death date), pretty much all her published work is still under copyright. But in the U.S., it seems that much of her (especially earliest) work is now free from copyright restrictions.
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i've got holds ready to be picked up at the library already, including a book on cd called "five women poets".
hmmm... amazon seems to have it on tape.
http://www.amazon.com/Voice-Poet-American-Gertrude-Rukeyser/dp/0375416358/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217450516&sr=8-1
thank you for the link, i hope the one i just used doesn't stretch the width of the the blog....
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Cool... and thanks!
I created an Amazon thingie for it:
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you said thingie... *laughing*
my link should go through to your bookstore as well.
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First off ...thank you for introducing me to someone new, someone I've never heard of before.
I love the two pieces you've chosen to share of her work. Especially the second one.
I've read some of Ezra Pounds work before but didn't know she was so directly related to him or the movement in poetry he is know for starting.
So thank you.... I'll look forward to the selection of pieces you plan to put into the on-line library when you have the time.
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Thank you, Chris! Glad you like her.... Hilda's work is much more diverse than these two poems might lead folks to believe, and I had a hard time narrowing this blog down to two, because I really wanted to show off what all she could do. And to add more poems would have made it a bit long. So thank goodness for the online library... lol.
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I loved these. I've been pondering them for a couple of days. They are a perfect pairing. The first illustrating something precious and beautiful borne of adversity and the second a very interesting point of view that peace and beauty can be torture without a balance of pain, sorrow, chaos.
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Thank you, Tara! Your insights never cease to amaze. I should be used to them by now.
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i like reading your great post, keep posting!
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