Modern American Poetry I
H.D. and Amy Lowell
H.D. (aka Hilda Dolittle)
H.D. (1886-1961)
• Prolific as a poet she supported the Imagist Poetry.
• She presents images rather than ideas a an imagist poet but her poetry is not without social commentary. Like Amy Lowell or some
other imagists she commented on social issues, particularly on patriarchal society’s politics.
• Poems like “Helen” have feminist touches.
H.D.
Oread
Whirl up, sea—
whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks,
hurl your green over us,
cover us with your pools of fir.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48186/oread
Heat
O wind, rend open the heat, cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air-- fruit cannot fall into heat that presses up and blunts the points of pears
and rounds the grapes.
Cut the heat-- plough through it,
turning it on either side of your path.
(Copied from https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/heat/ on 29.02.2020)
H.D.
Helen
All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives
where she stands, and the white hands.
All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles, hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white, remembering past enchantments and past ills.
Greece sees unmoved,
God’s daughter, born of love, the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid, only if she were laid,
white ash amid funereal cypresses.
(Copied from https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/helen-2/ on 29.02.2020)
Amy Lowell (1874-1925)
Amy Lowell
• A well-educated (mostly through private tutoring and the wealthy library of the family) daughter of a very prominent family
• Both grandparents from mother’s and father’s side are industrialist patriarchs who founded cities.
• Family legacy was both a blessing and a curse for her
• She financed the Imagist anthologies
• She infuriated Ezra Pound because she in time became more
dominant in Imagist movement. He accused her of stealing “his”
movement.
• Pound denounced his membership to Imagist movement and
started making fun of Lowell by calling the movement “Amygism”
Amy Lowell
• Her obesity and sexual orientation as well as membership to an ultra-wealthy family marred her correct reception.
• She produced an immense size of poetry, some good snd some bad.
• Some critics believed she could have been a
much better poet if she had a better discerning
eye and not published that many poems.
Amy Lowell
The Letter
Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper Like draggled fly's legs,
What can you tell of the flaring moon Through the oak leaves?
Or of my uncertain window and the bare floor Spattered with moonlight?
Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them Of blossoming hawthorns,
And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of loveliness Beneath my hand.
I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against The want of you;
Of squeezing it into little inkdrops, And posting it.
And I scald alone, here, under the fire Of the great moon.
(Copied from https://poets.org/poem/letter-1 on 29.02.2020)
Amy Lowell
A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M.
They have watered the street, It shines in the glare of lamps, Cold, white lamps,
And lies
Like a slow-moving river, Barred with silver and black.
Cabs go down it, One,
And then another,
Between them I hear the shuffling of feet.
Tramps doze on the window-ledges, Night-walkers pass along the sidewalks.
The city is squalid and sinister,
With the silver-barred street in the midst, Slow-moving,
A river leading nowhere.
Opposite my window, The moon cuts,
Clear and round,
Through the plum-coloured night.
She cannot light the city:
It is too bright.
It has white lamps, And glitters coldly.
I stand in the window and watch the moon.
She is thin and lustreless, But I love her.
I know the moon,
And this is an alien city.
(Copied from https://poets.org/poem/london-thoroughfare-2-am on 29.02.2020)
