“Words were her plague and words were her redemption.”
- Name: Hilda Doolittle
- Born: September 10th 1886
- Died: September 27th 1961
- From: Bethlehem, PA
- Pronouns: She/her
- Contribution/Impact: Hilda Doolittle’s modernist and imagist works and experimental form influenced art at the time and to this day, and her unapologetic pride for her sexuality left an impact on the art world and the LGBTQ community.
- Occupation: Poet and Novelist
- Known For: Sea Rose, and Oread.
- Awards: In 1960 a year before her passing she received an Award of Merit Medal for poetry, the first ever woman to receive the award. She was both a prominent modernist and imagist of her time.
Hilda Doolittle was a bisexual poet, and writer who experimented with form and included themes like mysticism, psychoanalysis, sapphic love, and feminism in her work. She was born in 1886 in Upper Darby, and attended Bryn Mawr College and spent her younger years in the greater Philadelphia area. H.D. was close with other modernists and imagists at the time such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, and even courted the former. Her aversion to marriage with a man and fellow artist led her to discover a close bond with Frances Josepha Gregg and Bryher (Annie Winifred Ellermen) create sapphic inspired art. H.D. left a huge impact on poetry leading the imagist movement and being open about sexuality and mental health.
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