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Trilogía
Los tres largos poemas que conforman Trilogía constituyen una de las obras maestras de la poesía del siglo XX, comparable a los Cuatro cuartetos de T. S. Eliot, a Brigflatts de Basil Bunting o a Notas hacia una ficción suprema de Wallace Stevens. Escrita bajo el impacto de la Segunda Guerra Mundial, H. D. indaga a lo largo de eta obra en el amor, la muerte o la posibilidad de redención, llevando su propia poesía -despojada ahora de las tiranías del imaginismo que había ayudado a fundar- a terrenos nunca antes explorados, configurando así uno de los experimentos literarios más arriesgados y fructíferos de nuestro tiempo.
421 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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About the author
H.D.
127 books328 followersAn innovative modernist American writer, Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961) wrote under her initials in a career that stretched from 1909 to 1961. H.D., most well known for her lyric and epic poetry, also wrote novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, reviews, a children’s book, and translations. An American woman who lived her adult life abroad, H.D. was engaged in the formalist experimentation that preoccupied much of her generation. A range of thematic concerns resonates through her writing: the role of the poet, the civilian representation of war, material and mythologized ancient cultures, the role of national and colonial identity, lesbian and queer sexuality, and religion and spirituality.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 106 reviews
August 17, 2008
Of all of H.D.'s work, next to Notes on Thought and Vision (which proves a good key or legend to understanding Trilogy) this is my favorite and I suspect her most important epic poem (though I am fond of Helen in Egypt and Hermetic Definitiontoo).
Trilogy consists of three books: These Walls Do Not Fall; Tribute to the Angels; and The Flowering of the Rod. Each of these divisions is made up of 43 parts or poems, the poems divided only by the number they bear, the 43 adding up to the mystical number 7. Mystical numbers and allusions abound here, just like the three books of Trilogy allude to the Trinity. The three books were written during World War II and the London blitz which seems to have triggered a psychic breakdown or trauma that enabled H.D.'s intense and intricate vision captured here, a vision that speaks to a new world H.D. envisioned as inevitable after the mass destruction and horror of the war.
These Walls Do Not Fall is the earliest of the three books, written during the air raids and battles over London in 1942. H.D. lived in London at this time, the stress and destruction of the bombings present in the poetry. Poem 1 opens with “An incident here and there, / and rails gone (for guns) / from your (and my) old town square” (1:1-3). The incidents refer to the air battles over London, transportation impossible as the rails have been torn up to make guns, while the repetition of here and there, or there and here in the poems, “there, as here, ruin opens / the tomb, the temple; enter, / there as here, there are no doors:” (1:10-12) relates London to the ancient city of Karnak as H.D.’s epigraph reveals: "for Karnak 1923 from / London 1942." H.D. visited Karnak in 1923, and likens the ruins she saw to the ruins of the London she lives in. This conflation of space opens, in a way that’s akin to invoking a muse, a creative space of imaginative and mythic potential:
the shrine lies open to the sky,
the rain falls, here, there
sand drifts; eternity endures: (1:13-15)
Stranded in London, the old town squares gone, inaccessible, these modern day ruins become a shrine, like the ruined temple at Karnak, its roof, and thus boundaries, gone. In London, rain falls through the opened roof space, while in Egypt sand drifts through a similar space. H.D. follows this comparison with the phrase “eternity endures,” showing how ruins persist: as in Karnak so in London. Also, since the phrase is followed by a colon, the next stanza seems to be an example of enduring eternity:
ruin everywhere, yet as the fallen roof
leaves the sealed room
open to the air,
so through our desolation,
thoughts stir, inspiration stalks us
through gloom: (1:16-21)
As the ruins lie open to the sky, so do H.D.’s thoughts, the ruins inspiring her to ascend through the opened space, to reach new imaginative heights.
Poem 1 not only sets the historic scene and impetus for H.D.’s project, but also serves as an introduction to the book itself. H.D. marvels at how “the bone-frame was made for / no such shock knit within terror, / yet the skeleton stood up to it:” (1:43-45) referring to the incessant bombing of the Germans on a literal, physical level locating the trauma within her body and yet how it endures. She moves to the metaphor in the next stanza: “the flesh? it was melted away, / the heart burnt out, dead ember, / tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered,” (1:46-48) painting a graphic picture of the body consumed and destroyed, which metaphorically speaks to a necessary death, a burning away of the layers to get back at the skeleton, at the framework: “yet the frame held: / we passed the flame: we wonder / what saved us? what for?” (1:49-51). This first poem ends with these important questions, questions that allow the creation of the poems that are to follow, poems that will demand answers through their very process of being written. H.D. will find whatever “Presence” or “Spirit” saved her, and in finding the benefactor, learn why she was saved, for what purpose she was spared. These questions also keep the reader reading, to find out what spirit or being spared H.D. and her companions as they hid out in shelters. It also poses the “what for?” question, which would speak to the skeletal frame that remains. H.D.’s project is to create a new religion, one stripped of its recent history and baggage. She seeks to return to the beginning of all myths, and marry them by finding or forcing connections between their stories.
For instance, H.D. has a tendency to conflate mythologies and god figures, such as the Egyptian Amen and the Christian Christ. In poem 18 she writes: “The Christos-image / is most difficult to disentangle // from its art-craft junk-shop / paint-and-plaster medieval jumble // of pain-worship and death-symbol,” (18:1-5) referring obviously to the Christian, or more appropriately Roman Catholic cult of pain and death that surrounds Christ. The “art-craft junk-shop” refers to the iconography and religious art that has arisen through the ages, especially frescoes, the “paint-and-plaster medieval jumble.” She disentangles this Christ image to conflate him with Amen, the Egyptian Sun God: “for now it appears obvious / that Amen is our Christos” (18:11-12). H.D. writes, in language reminiscent of the Bible, “let us light a new fire / and in the fragrance // of burnt salt and sea-incense / chant new paeans to the new Sun” (17:11-14) the “sun” a pun on both Sun and Son. The new Sun is “of regeneration;” the territory of the Egyptian God Amen: “we have always worshipped Him, / we have always said, / forever and ever, Amen” (17:16-18). H.D. takes the Christian ending to a prayer “amen” and raises it to the level of a God’s name from another culture, Amen. The endnotes by Barnstone remind us how “Amen is a variation in name of Amon or Ammon. Amon’s most important shrine was the Temple of Amon at Luxor in ancient Thebes” (Reader’s Notes 179). The temple-city of Luxor is at Karnak, housing the Temple of Amon or Amen. Amen is also associated with Ra, the Egyptian Sun God, who is Apollo in the Greek pantheon, patron of poets and art. The move on H.D.’s part is to create a God of the Arts, the “mage” as she calls him, who later reveals himself as Kaspar in The Flowering of the Rod, and as Christ and Venus in Tribute to the Angels.
The key word to understand this conflation project is “palimpsest”, a word she uses throughout These Walls Do Not Fall which signifies an ancient manuscript of parchment or papyrus which was written over more than once, the earlier writing still legible beneath the new writing. H.D. writes in section 31, “jottings on a margin, / indecipherable palimpsest scribbled over” (31:3-4) which perfectly describes how her new words incorporate the words of ancient texts. Yet she also uses this word in an imagined accusation against her project: “how can you scratch out // indelible ink of the palimpsest / of past misadventure?” (2:26-28). The accusation seems to come from within her as she doubts her project, though textually it comes in the form of the “they” that haunts these poems as the audience of her project. Since the ink is indelible or unable to be erased, the question is, how in good faith can she scratch out as a form of erasure? And what words on the palimpsest is she scratching out? The words written over the original by those who have misinterpreted the original meaning, the interpretations of “past misadventure”? Or the original words themselves? In would seem the former, the misinterpretations, though her project is in the same interpretative vein as she writes new words over the originals, her additions seeking to also add new meaning.
I always have more to say about H.D. and this book (in particular where Notes on Thought and Vision intersects with this project), but on a personal note I've always found the book in many ways a Christmas poem, especially the last section The Flowering of the Rod, as it was written during December 18-31 in 1944. This section uses the language of the Nativity and of the Three Magi, or wise men, especially Kaspar, in its vision of poetry’s power for the future (the poet as secret initiate, the chosen prophet to destroy the old gods and make way for the new god of art, of poetry, the Mage, Amen). It is the most “Christian” of the three books, with Tribute to the Angels coming in second as a Spring poem, and thus heavily involved with rebirth as it was composed in the last days of May (17-31) in 1944. Tribute to the Angels is shorter in length, though still made up of the requisite 43 poems, and is probably the most difficult of the three books to decipher in its use of the book of Revelation to speak of seven angelic figures as they conflate with gods and goddesses from other cultures.
But the reason I call it a Christmas poem stems from a strong affinity that I can only explain as the shared rooted-ness of also having been born and raised in Bethlehem, PA. I must confess I have read Trilogy every year on Christmas Eve for the past five years now when I am at home visiting my parents in the Christmas City.
Trilogy consists of three books: These Walls Do Not Fall; Tribute to the Angels; and The Flowering of the Rod. Each of these divisions is made up of 43 parts or poems, the poems divided only by the number they bear, the 43 adding up to the mystical number 7. Mystical numbers and allusions abound here, just like the three books of Trilogy allude to the Trinity. The three books were written during World War II and the London blitz which seems to have triggered a psychic breakdown or trauma that enabled H.D.'s intense and intricate vision captured here, a vision that speaks to a new world H.D. envisioned as inevitable after the mass destruction and horror of the war.
These Walls Do Not Fall is the earliest of the three books, written during the air raids and battles over London in 1942. H.D. lived in London at this time, the stress and destruction of the bombings present in the poetry. Poem 1 opens with “An incident here and there, / and rails gone (for guns) / from your (and my) old town square” (1:1-3). The incidents refer to the air battles over London, transportation impossible as the rails have been torn up to make guns, while the repetition of here and there, or there and here in the poems, “there, as here, ruin opens / the tomb, the temple; enter, / there as here, there are no doors:” (1:10-12) relates London to the ancient city of Karnak as H.D.’s epigraph reveals: "for Karnak 1923 from / London 1942." H.D. visited Karnak in 1923, and likens the ruins she saw to the ruins of the London she lives in. This conflation of space opens, in a way that’s akin to invoking a muse, a creative space of imaginative and mythic potential:
the shrine lies open to the sky,
the rain falls, here, there
sand drifts; eternity endures: (1:13-15)
Stranded in London, the old town squares gone, inaccessible, these modern day ruins become a shrine, like the ruined temple at Karnak, its roof, and thus boundaries, gone. In London, rain falls through the opened roof space, while in Egypt sand drifts through a similar space. H.D. follows this comparison with the phrase “eternity endures,” showing how ruins persist: as in Karnak so in London. Also, since the phrase is followed by a colon, the next stanza seems to be an example of enduring eternity:
ruin everywhere, yet as the fallen roof
leaves the sealed room
open to the air,
so through our desolation,
thoughts stir, inspiration stalks us
through gloom: (1:16-21)
As the ruins lie open to the sky, so do H.D.’s thoughts, the ruins inspiring her to ascend through the opened space, to reach new imaginative heights.
Poem 1 not only sets the historic scene and impetus for H.D.’s project, but also serves as an introduction to the book itself. H.D. marvels at how “the bone-frame was made for / no such shock knit within terror, / yet the skeleton stood up to it:” (1:43-45) referring to the incessant bombing of the Germans on a literal, physical level locating the trauma within her body and yet how it endures. She moves to the metaphor in the next stanza: “the flesh? it was melted away, / the heart burnt out, dead ember, / tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered,” (1:46-48) painting a graphic picture of the body consumed and destroyed, which metaphorically speaks to a necessary death, a burning away of the layers to get back at the skeleton, at the framework: “yet the frame held: / we passed the flame: we wonder / what saved us? what for?” (1:49-51). This first poem ends with these important questions, questions that allow the creation of the poems that are to follow, poems that will demand answers through their very process of being written. H.D. will find whatever “Presence” or “Spirit” saved her, and in finding the benefactor, learn why she was saved, for what purpose she was spared. These questions also keep the reader reading, to find out what spirit or being spared H.D. and her companions as they hid out in shelters. It also poses the “what for?” question, which would speak to the skeletal frame that remains. H.D.’s project is to create a new religion, one stripped of its recent history and baggage. She seeks to return to the beginning of all myths, and marry them by finding or forcing connections between their stories.
For instance, H.D. has a tendency to conflate mythologies and god figures, such as the Egyptian Amen and the Christian Christ. In poem 18 she writes: “The Christos-image / is most difficult to disentangle // from its art-craft junk-shop / paint-and-plaster medieval jumble // of pain-worship and death-symbol,” (18:1-5) referring obviously to the Christian, or more appropriately Roman Catholic cult of pain and death that surrounds Christ. The “art-craft junk-shop” refers to the iconography and religious art that has arisen through the ages, especially frescoes, the “paint-and-plaster medieval jumble.” She disentangles this Christ image to conflate him with Amen, the Egyptian Sun God: “for now it appears obvious / that Amen is our Christos” (18:11-12). H.D. writes, in language reminiscent of the Bible, “let us light a new fire / and in the fragrance // of burnt salt and sea-incense / chant new paeans to the new Sun” (17:11-14) the “sun” a pun on both Sun and Son. The new Sun is “of regeneration;” the territory of the Egyptian God Amen: “we have always worshipped Him, / we have always said, / forever and ever, Amen” (17:16-18). H.D. takes the Christian ending to a prayer “amen” and raises it to the level of a God’s name from another culture, Amen. The endnotes by Barnstone remind us how “Amen is a variation in name of Amon or Ammon. Amon’s most important shrine was the Temple of Amon at Luxor in ancient Thebes” (Reader’s Notes 179). The temple-city of Luxor is at Karnak, housing the Temple of Amon or Amen. Amen is also associated with Ra, the Egyptian Sun God, who is Apollo in the Greek pantheon, patron of poets and art. The move on H.D.’s part is to create a God of the Arts, the “mage” as she calls him, who later reveals himself as Kaspar in The Flowering of the Rod, and as Christ and Venus in Tribute to the Angels.
The key word to understand this conflation project is “palimpsest”, a word she uses throughout These Walls Do Not Fall which signifies an ancient manuscript of parchment or papyrus which was written over more than once, the earlier writing still legible beneath the new writing. H.D. writes in section 31, “jottings on a margin, / indecipherable palimpsest scribbled over” (31:3-4) which perfectly describes how her new words incorporate the words of ancient texts. Yet she also uses this word in an imagined accusation against her project: “how can you scratch out // indelible ink of the palimpsest / of past misadventure?” (2:26-28). The accusation seems to come from within her as she doubts her project, though textually it comes in the form of the “they” that haunts these poems as the audience of her project. Since the ink is indelible or unable to be erased, the question is, how in good faith can she scratch out as a form of erasure? And what words on the palimpsest is she scratching out? The words written over the original by those who have misinterpreted the original meaning, the interpretations of “past misadventure”? Or the original words themselves? In would seem the former, the misinterpretations, though her project is in the same interpretative vein as she writes new words over the originals, her additions seeking to also add new meaning.
I always have more to say about H.D. and this book (in particular where Notes on Thought and Vision intersects with this project), but on a personal note I've always found the book in many ways a Christmas poem, especially the last section The Flowering of the Rod, as it was written during December 18-31 in 1944. This section uses the language of the Nativity and of the Three Magi, or wise men, especially Kaspar, in its vision of poetry’s power for the future (the poet as secret initiate, the chosen prophet to destroy the old gods and make way for the new god of art, of poetry, the Mage, Amen). It is the most “Christian” of the three books, with Tribute to the Angels coming in second as a Spring poem, and thus heavily involved with rebirth as it was composed in the last days of May (17-31) in 1944. Tribute to the Angels is shorter in length, though still made up of the requisite 43 poems, and is probably the most difficult of the three books to decipher in its use of the book of Revelation to speak of seven angelic figures as they conflate with gods and goddesses from other cultures.
But the reason I call it a Christmas poem stems from a strong affinity that I can only explain as the shared rooted-ness of also having been born and raised in Bethlehem, PA. I must confess I have read Trilogy every year on Christmas Eve for the past five years now when I am at home visiting my parents in the Christmas City.
January 16, 2020
Depth of the sub-conscious spews forth
too many incongruent monsters
The day is but a quadrant of agonizing beauty. Damage was inflicted last night. Self care was errant. But the day has bounded with joy. So strange then to immerse in the gilded pain of H.D. While I was out walking I considered easily disparate natures of this triptych and how "incongruent monsters " found a harmony in my aching head.
I think I will wait on her Helen. The cicadas are a sufficient charm at present. I can reach for her fear but it remains imprinted, folded.
too many incongruent monsters
The day is but a quadrant of agonizing beauty. Damage was inflicted last night. Self care was errant. But the day has bounded with joy. So strange then to immerse in the gilded pain of H.D. While I was out walking I considered easily disparate natures of this triptych and how "incongruent monsters " found a harmony in my aching head.
I think I will wait on her Helen. The cicadas are a sufficient charm at present. I can reach for her fear but it remains imprinted, folded.
February 18, 2020
There are some really beautiful images in these poems. Death, war, spirituality, humanity, its all there. Simply amazing. I really am loving HD and I intend to read more of her work. She was an amazingly prolific writer, and its wonderful that she is being rediscovered, and re read, from the many angles her work has. Loved it.
June 21, 2013
Hmmm... this should be subtitled "A Gospel Reworking and Some Semantic Games According to H. D." It is straight-up mystical poetry, constructed around what looks like an intensely personal mythology. For this reason, it's not very accessible.
Not that I've ever had the pleasure, if that's what it would be, but it felt a lot like I had walked in the middle of a mystery cult ceremony and was expected to know exactly what was going on.
Not that I've ever had the pleasure, if that's what it would be, but it felt a lot like I had walked in the middle of a mystery cult ceremony and was expected to know exactly what was going on.
February 14, 2021
I live; I am alive;
take care, do not know me,
deny me, do not recognise me,
take care, do not know me,
deny me, do not recognise me,
March 6, 2008
In this collection of three book-length poems, exploring the search for spirituality amidst the confusion of war and its aftermath, I was most impressed with H.D.’s subtle call to reclaim the feminine idols of religion in a time when masculine wars were dominating the world. Throughout these three imagistic narratives, H.D. draws parallels between Eve, Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary, calling for them to be our guides and leaders as countries resurrect themselves from World War II. Even when she evokes the names of the male Angels and Wise Men from Christian mythology, she compares them to “bells,” “lilies,” and “bees” (78), therefore keeping their power and energy in relation to feminine symbols. I am especially drawn to the solutions for war she puts forth here in light of current events. It would be a revelation to see what our world would be like now if women could, as H.D. challenges, individually began forging a new path to healing, unmindful of “the others/up and down the street” who in their “confusion” don’t know how to begin a “resurrection” from war and hatred (116-117).
May 30, 2014
H.D. masterfully reinvents dense, poetic verse. The lines have a regenerative quality which combine life and death, echoing similar characteristics of T.S. Eliot's poetry. Between H.D.'s focus on the spiritual and physical, the circle of life, quite simply, reveals itself in the recreation of old things into new and the everlasting similarities which the new maintains from the old.
H.D.'s poetry and the readers' notes by Aliki Barnstone in this text give me insight into the creative process and the function of a single poem. This text says to me, "Create, but Destroy."
H.D.'s poetry and the readers' notes by Aliki Barnstone in this text give me insight into the creative process and the function of a single poem. This text says to me, "Create, but Destroy."
June 30, 2008
Modernism from a woman's perspective.
A friend and I are working through all the "groundbreaking books" on the Academy of American Poets list, and near the halfway mark, we hit this book, a collection of three poetic sequences which form a larger sequence together. Written during and after WWII, Trilogy addresses the themes of modernism; like Pound and Eliot, H.D. looks at putting back together the shards of civilization--her take, though, melds Egyptian and Christian mythology and addresses both our interior lives and religious questioning. I'm surprised I haven't heard more about this work, because, as I said, though written later than Eliot and Pound's key texts, it exemplifies the themes of Modernism for me--but some of the problems I have with the forms of modernism don't appear here. The work has occasional "Imagistic" tendencies, but the larger move is towards a lyric narrative. The final section, in particular, was an compelling extended meditative narrative about the character of Mary (Magdalene) and a man who sold her the oil with which she washed Jesus' feet (although H.D. acknowledges the complexity of having many "Mary"s in the New Testament).
It was refreshing to read more of H.D. than appears in the anthologies.
A friend and I are working through all the "groundbreaking books" on the Academy of American Poets list, and near the halfway mark, we hit this book, a collection of three poetic sequences which form a larger sequence together. Written during and after WWII, Trilogy addresses the themes of modernism; like Pound and Eliot, H.D. looks at putting back together the shards of civilization--her take, though, melds Egyptian and Christian mythology and addresses both our interior lives and religious questioning. I'm surprised I haven't heard more about this work, because, as I said, though written later than Eliot and Pound's key texts, it exemplifies the themes of Modernism for me--but some of the problems I have with the forms of modernism don't appear here. The work has occasional "Imagistic" tendencies, but the larger move is towards a lyric narrative. The final section, in particular, was an compelling extended meditative narrative about the character of Mary (Magdalene) and a man who sold her the oil with which she washed Jesus' feet (although H.D. acknowledges the complexity of having many "Mary"s in the New Testament).
It was refreshing to read more of H.D. than appears in the anthologies.
December 20, 2012
"O heart, small urn
of porphyry, agate or cornelian,
how imperceptibly the grain fell
between a heart-beat of pleasure
and a heart-beat of pain;
I do not know how it came
nor how long it had lain there,
nor can I say
how it escaped tempest
of passion and malice,
nor why it was not washed away
in flood of sorrow,
or dried up in the bleak drought
of bitter thought."
If this passage doesn't grab you, you're probably not going to be drawn in otherwise. Very surreal; crystalline images; very strange spiritualism at moments (some over the top, yes). But moments of astonishing honesty, deep-cut affect. Read this in undergrad & was too banal to even try to "get" this, but it's just wonderful.
of porphyry, agate or cornelian,
how imperceptibly the grain fell
between a heart-beat of pleasure
and a heart-beat of pain;
I do not know how it came
nor how long it had lain there,
nor can I say
how it escaped tempest
of passion and malice,
nor why it was not washed away
in flood of sorrow,
or dried up in the bleak drought
of bitter thought."
If this passage doesn't grab you, you're probably not going to be drawn in otherwise. Very surreal; crystalline images; very strange spiritualism at moments (some over the top, yes). But moments of astonishing honesty, deep-cut affect. Read this in undergrad & was too banal to even try to "get" this, but it's just wonderful.
November 15, 2011
So beautiful, but "The Walls Do Not Fall" didn't resonate emotionally as consistently as I wanted it to. I think it may have to do with the lack of a clear crisis in the poem, which is something that characterizes the other long poems ("Song of Myself," "The Wasteland," etc.) I read for this class. The religious and spiritual ether-world the poem inhabits wasn't as satisfying without a grounding in a specific literal event (for example: Schnackenberg's "Heavenly Questions" is a meditation on philosophy, but the impetus of the poem is the death of her husband, a philosopher). But the music of H.D.'s language propelled me forward regardless and I really enjoyed the work. Some of the shortest sections (33, 39) are just killer.
May 2, 2019
Read, in the sense that I began on the first page and followed the bread crumb trail of beautiful words to the last. And yet I know this, like Rilke's elegies or Gass' tunnel, will be a work I revisit and dig through for the rest of my life. There's an entire world in this book; an entire way of being. Doolittle, with the chaos of war still fresh in her mind, created this gorgeous tribute to hope and renewal despite the task of repair ahead appearing nigh impossible. Whatever your opinion her work may be, there's a lesson situated within this woman's refusal to capitulate, to abandon her work, to lessen the scope and ambition of her vision.
This book should cost you about $17 or less. I would consider that a bargain.
This book should cost you about $17 or less. I would consider that a bargain.
April 25, 2010
Perhaps more later, but I'll need to think about it, and re-read portions. Actually, in order to do it justice, I would probably need to re-read the entire book a few times. The 3 long poems are drenched in images and symbols, but not in a way that they become speed bumps for the reader, probably because overall the book has a great beauty that carries it along. Trilogy also has an intensity of vision that you'll rarely encounter in a poetry collection. Read it.
February 28, 2014
like a lot of modernist poetry, it's pretty dated now - overly confident of its allusions (biblical, classical -
stuff that late 19th/early 20th C. intellectuals would be versed in, but are now Greek to everyone)
stuff that late 19th/early 20th C. intellectuals would be versed in, but are now Greek to everyone)
March 1, 2019
H.D is a poet who overflows the imaginary emerging in a masterful creative lyricism that we do not see nowadays. A peculiar view of the civil consequences of war. This is a classic. It's her best job.
July 30, 2025
Like all fr fr classics this will be a book to return to every some odd years. I have enjoyed reading H.D.’s earlier poems sporadically but this seals the deal. Outside of some Ball’r passages that just resonate on another plane; is the gliding weight of deeply embedded biblical, spiritual and esoteric meaning in more or less every passage. The way in which she presents lived experience through description that is rooted in mythological depth aligns that very mythology within the truth of being. Incredible end taking it all back to a very particular crux of new beginning.
Would also recommend it twice through like the editor suggests.
Would also recommend it twice through like the editor suggests.
March 11, 2021
too little: I know, I feel / the meaning that words hide; / they are anagrams, cryptograms, / little boxes, conditioned / to hatch butterflies...
Gorgeous collection of poems. The Walls definitely resonated more with me, but I feel like these are all poems that I can keep going back to and picking up and finding different nuggets in them.
Gorgeous collection of poems. The Walls definitely resonated more with me, but I feel like these are all poems that I can keep going back to and picking up and finding different nuggets in them.
February 3, 2021
Really enjoyed this. The language and symbolic references used are very personal to me, I felt at times like she was reaching through time & talking to me directly; addressing me. The Introduction & Reader's Notes provided excellent expert interpretation & contextual knowledge.
Read
June 19, 2025No me gusta mucho el simbolismo y la Trilogía de H.D. es puro simbolismo. Ahora bien, si se leen estos tres largos poemas como una obra épica al estilo de los cantares medievales, las eddas o las sagas, tiene mucha fuerza y un sentido indudable y poderoso.
August 14, 2021
Es toda una experiencia.
February 6, 2022
Never seen such an intoxicating rhythm in all my life... no idea what she's saying half the time but it feels so right
June 29, 2015
This book was a wild ride, and the missing fifth star is definitely me. H.D.'s brilliance is unquestionable reading this; she is writing a scripture of poetry("poets are useless,//...this is the new heresy"), a revelation of the feminine divine, a tale of the spirit in the form of a person, and I don't know what else in a (generally) lucid and strong poem--or three poems. While each poem is a "long poem" that could, theoretically, be a complete longer verse work in and of itself, the parts of Trilogy fit together into a seamless whole, just as the forty-three sections of each poem are only can only be separated by the numbers that head them. H.D. brings together the worlds of psychoanalysis and religion in poems that feel like transcribed dreams--particularly Tribute to the Angels--and this work is a hymn to words, to The Lady/the female aspect of divinity (as she appears in the poems), and to the dream experience of life. The touch of World War II is identifiable--The Walls Do Not Fall begins "An incident here and there/and rails gone (for guns)/from your (and my) old town square"--but is not the focus of the poems. Rather, these poems dwell in the distant past of Egypt and Judea and the distant future of Revelation. H.D. moves between these places effortlessly, especially in The Walls Do Not Fall (Tribute to the Angels dwells mostly in the future and The Flowering of the Rod lives mostly in the past), and yet she never forgets her life in the moment; she is merely the scribe of the vast divine existence she is capturing in the words of Trilogy. In the first poem, I had trouble following the thread of thought, but I was being tripped by references I understood but did not get--I knew what she was alluding to. but had trouble with why for most of that poem, and the notes explained only "what" and drew me out of the poem itself. Her ecstasy in being and in knowledge is clear, but for me, these poems lacked the ability to generate the same reaction, even as I appreciated their intelligence and skill.
The poems of Trilogy rest very much on the line between poetry and prose--the language is never "prosaic", always "elevated", even when relatively simple, but the music was of a kind softer even than free verse. The most musical of the three parts was Tribute to the Angels and the one that was most direct was Flowering of the Rod, which had very large sections of "simple" narrative. An example of the music of these poems is section fifteen of Tribute to the Angels,
The poems of Trilogy rest very much on the line between poetry and prose--the language is never "prosaic", always "elevated", even when relatively simple, but the music was of a kind softer even than free verse. The most musical of the three parts was Tribute to the Angels and the one that was most direct was Flowering of the Rod, which had very large sections of "simple" narrative. An example of the music of these poems is section fifteen of Tribute to the Angels,
Annael--this was another voice,and this appears elsewhere in the work, such as in section sixteen of The Flowering of the Rod: "I am Mary--O, there are Marys-a-plenty,/(though I am Mara, bitter) I shall be Mary-myrrh". H.D.'s writing is powerful and the poetry is generally elegant and poetic. The lapses out of song may be as much my fault for reading in a bad place or at a bad time as hers for having inconsistent musicality, and her emotional connection to the work is obvious, although I could not feel it as I have in so many other poems (including--to a point--"The Waste Land", which was compared to Trilogy in the introduction).
hardly a voice, a breath, a whisper,
and I remembered bell-notes
Azrael, Gabriel, Raphael,
as when in Venice, one of the campanili
speaks and another answers,
until it seems the whole city (Venice-Venus)
will be covered with gold pollen shaken
from the bell-towers, lilies plundered
with the weight of massive bees...
May 16, 2024
To be honest, I find it difficult to read the first one. I didn't feel, or was in this first book.
However, I really liked the second, new themes, new references that made me liked more this part and introduced me with the third one that definitely transported me.
Somehow, we can consider that my interest in HD's work only bloomed throughout the reading.
I didn't know a lot of things about Imagism nor I knew about HD's poetry, but I really enjoyed studying it.
However, I really liked the second, new themes, new references that made me liked more this part and introduced me with the third one that definitely transported me.
Somehow, we can consider that my interest in HD's work only bloomed throughout the reading.
I didn't know a lot of things about Imagism nor I knew about HD's poetry, but I really enjoyed studying it.
December 20, 2024
«…up our individual grass-blade
toward our individual star.»
toward our individual star.»
January 30, 2018
I discovered HD in my modern poetry class several years ago in college. We read a few of her poems, and with understanding, I loved her words. I got this poetry collection of hers because I wanted to read more of her work, and truthfully, my professor shared her best poems. The majority are complex and hard to understand, and even connect with. I’m a little disappointed, but I know I would love it if ‘I got it.’
She’s a great poet, and I urge those who don’t know her to look her up and read some of her work—but be ready for the challenge. It will be well worth it.
She’s a great poet, and I urge those who don’t know her to look her up and read some of her work—but be ready for the challenge. It will be well worth it.
June 5, 2015
Beautiful. Even though there are 3 books, they flow together very well. HD's use of couplets and references make her stand out among modernist poets. This was such a treat to read.
January 22, 2022
H.D.'s Trilogy is composed of three books: The Walls Do Not Fall, Tribute to the Angels, and
The Flowering of the Rod
.
My initial response to H.D.'s Trilogy was admiration mixed with disinterest regarding the poet's use of Biblical imagery. ("I admire H.D., but this particular collection was of less interest to me because of the excess of Biblical imagery.") Upon revisiting H.D.'s Trilogy, my opinion has improved.
The Walls Do Not Fall is dedicated to Bryher. "Bryher" is the pen name of H.D.'s lover, Annie Winifred Ellerman. H.D. and Bryher met near the end of the First World War and lived together until the end of the Second World War. Although they lived apart and took numerous other partners, they remained lovers until H.D.'s death in 1961.
The Walls Do Not Fall is a sequence of forty-three poems. The imagery that I previously called "Biblical" could more accurately be called "mystical". Indeed, H.D.'s "gods" are not exclusively Christian. Her description of the gods and goddesses include "winged head dress // of horns, as the butterfly / antennae, // or the erect king-cobra crest / to show how the worm turns." (The Walls Do Not Fall, 7). Indeed, her gods more closely resemble the gods of Egyptian mythology.
Her allusions to mythology are not limited to Egyptian mythology, but extend to Greek mythology...
H.D. identifies the Greek influence in the everyday. Triton in the sea, and Orion in the sky (both appear in the 37th poem of the sequence)...
The apocalyptic imagery, commonly noted among poets from the era, reflects the poet's experience during the Second World War, and the cultural/spiritual impact of both wars. Specifically the London air raids, which the poet experienced first hand, appears to be the inspiration for H.D.'s "Apocryphal fire"...
My initial response to H.D.'s Trilogy was admiration mixed with disinterest regarding the poet's use of Biblical imagery. ("I admire H.D., but this particular collection was of less interest to me because of the excess of Biblical imagery.") Upon revisiting H.D.'s Trilogy, my opinion has improved.
The Walls Do Not Fall is dedicated to Bryher. "Bryher" is the pen name of H.D.'s lover, Annie Winifred Ellerman. H.D. and Bryher met near the end of the First World War and lived together until the end of the Second World War. Although they lived apart and took numerous other partners, they remained lovers until H.D.'s death in 1961.
The Walls Do Not Fall is a sequence of forty-three poems. The imagery that I previously called "Biblical" could more accurately be called "mystical". Indeed, H.D.'s "gods" are not exclusively Christian. Her description of the gods and goddesses include "winged head dress // of horns, as the butterfly / antennae, // or the erect king-cobra crest / to show how the worm turns." (The Walls Do Not Fall, 7). Indeed, her gods more closely resemble the gods of Egyptian mythology.
Her allusions to mythology are not limited to Egyptian mythology, but extend to Greek mythology...
Thoth, Hermes, the stylus,
the palette, the pen, the quill endure,
though our books are a floor
of smouldering ash under our feet;
though the burning of the books remains
the most perverse gesture
and the meanest
of man's mean nature,
yet give us, they still cry,
give us books...
- The Walls Do Not Fall, 9
H.D. identifies the Greek influence in the everyday. Triton in the sea, and Orion in the sky (both appear in the 37th poem of the sequence)...
Thou shalt have none other gods but me;
not on the sea
shall we entreat Triton or Dolphin,
not on the land
shall we lift rapt face and clasp hands
before laurel or oak-tree,
not in the sky
shall we invoke separately
Orion or Sirius
or the followers of the Bear,
not in the higher air
of Algorab, Regulus or Deneb
shall we cry
for help - or shall we?
- The Walls Do Not Fall, 37
The apocalyptic imagery, commonly noted among poets from the era, reflects the poet's experience during the Second World War, and the cultural/spiritual impact of both wars. Specifically the London air raids, which the poet experienced first hand, appears to be the inspiration for H.D.'s "Apocryphal fire"...
trembling at a known street-corner,
we know not nor are known;
the Pythian pronounces - we pass on
to another cellar, to another sliced wall
where poor utensils show
like rare objects in a museum;
Pompeii has nothing to teach us,
we know crack of volcanic fissure,
slow flow of terrible lava,
pressure on heart, lungs, the brain
about to burst its brittle case
(what the skull can endure!):
over us, Apocryphal fire,
under us, the earth sway, dip of a floor,
slop of pavement
where men roll, drunk
with a new bewilderment,
sorcery, bedevilment...
- The Walls Do Not Fall, 1
April 3, 2025
As the name suggests this is 3 books in one. The first one, The Walls Do Not Fall, was written in 1944 and quietly reflects the trauma of WWII. The other two books, Tribute to Angels and The Flowering of the Rod are strongly focused on biblical and mythological themes. Since I have never read the bible, I was at a disadvantage in getting everything out of the poems that likely can be gotten. This edition has a 20+ page notes section in the back to explain some of the biblical characters, objects, and situations that are alluded to.
Each book of Trilogy has about one poem per page that are numbered rather than titled and they are usually interconnected, if not an outright narrative continuation of each other. Some seemed to be pairings similar to Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
There is a lot of structural consistency throughout the three books. They all have the same number of poems (43) and all of the poems are composed of brief couplets, which she at one point describes as "broken hexameter" within a poem. I hadn't even realized it was consistent enough to be given a meter. The short lines with lots of white space makes the reading of the poems go fairly quickly, as does the interconnections between them, which may have resulted in my not giving them enough individual attention.
Despite the consistency of form, there was variety. Sometimes alliteration drifted in and drifted out again. There could be abrupt changes from biblical diction to commonplace phrases.
As a sample of her poetry in these volumes is #2 from Tribute to the Angels:
Your walls do not fall, he said,
because your walls are made of jasper;
but not four-square, I thought,
another shape (octahedron?)
slipped into the place
reserved by rule and rite
for the twelve foundations,
for the transparent glass,
for no need of the sun
nor moon to shine;
for the vision as we see
or have seen or imagined it
or in the past invoked
or conjured up or had conjured
by another, was usurped;
I saw the shape
which might have been of jasper,
but it was not four-square.
I find myself at a loss regarding who I would recommend this book to. Perhaps someone who likes examining the finer interactions of language since the larger structures are set. Certainly those who find the intersections of mythologies and the impact present and past have on one another would find these poems engaging. These are things I liked about these poems. However, they didn't leave me wanting more of H.D. and I'm not sure if it's only because of the reliance on biblical stories that I was only vaguely familiar with.
Each book of Trilogy has about one poem per page that are numbered rather than titled and they are usually interconnected, if not an outright narrative continuation of each other. Some seemed to be pairings similar to Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience.
There is a lot of structural consistency throughout the three books. They all have the same number of poems (43) and all of the poems are composed of brief couplets, which she at one point describes as "broken hexameter" within a poem. I hadn't even realized it was consistent enough to be given a meter. The short lines with lots of white space makes the reading of the poems go fairly quickly, as does the interconnections between them, which may have resulted in my not giving them enough individual attention.
Despite the consistency of form, there was variety. Sometimes alliteration drifted in and drifted out again. There could be abrupt changes from biblical diction to commonplace phrases.
As a sample of her poetry in these volumes is #2 from Tribute to the Angels:
Your walls do not fall, he said,
because your walls are made of jasper;
but not four-square, I thought,
another shape (octahedron?)
slipped into the place
reserved by rule and rite
for the twelve foundations,
for the transparent glass,
for no need of the sun
nor moon to shine;
for the vision as we see
or have seen or imagined it
or in the past invoked
or conjured up or had conjured
by another, was usurped;
I saw the shape
which might have been of jasper,
but it was not four-square.
I find myself at a loss regarding who I would recommend this book to. Perhaps someone who likes examining the finer interactions of language since the larger structures are set. Certainly those who find the intersections of mythologies and the impact present and past have on one another would find these poems engaging. These are things I liked about these poems. However, they didn't leave me wanting more of H.D. and I'm not sure if it's only because of the reliance on biblical stories that I was only vaguely familiar with.
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