Hilda Doolittle

Biography

American poet Hilda Doolittle was born in Bethlehem, PA, the daughter of a professor of astronomy at Lehigh University and his second wife. When she was nine her father was appointed director of the Flower Astronomical Observatory at the University of Pennsylvania, and the family moved to Philadelphia. After graduating from high school Hilda attended Bryn Mawr College, but had to leave in her second year because of ill health. In 1911 she traveled to Europe and came under the influence of radical writer/poet Ezra Pound and his Imagist movement, and she became known as the poet of the movement. Pound submitted some of her poems to the editor of "Poetry" magazine, who published them in 1913. That same year she married poet/writer Richard Aldington, who at the time was the editor of "Egoist" magazine. When World War I broke out Aldington joined the British army and Hilda took over as editor of the magazine. He came back from the war, but the pair eventually divorced. She returned to visit her home country of the US in 1920, and stayed a few months in California. Upon her return to Europe she moved to Lake Geneva, Switzerland. She never remarried after her divorce from Aldington, and died of a stroke at age 75 in 1961.