This late collection, written in the last years of H.D.'s life, is a testament to the fine ear and mythic sense of a poet who is now recognized as one of the greatest of her generation.

This late collection, written in the last years of H.D.'s life, is a testament to the fine ear and mythic sense of a poet who is now recognized as one of the greatest of her generation. H. D.’s (Hilda Doolittle, 1884-1961) late poems of search and longing represent the mature achievement of a poet who has come increasingly to be recognized as one of the most important of her generation. The title poem and other long pieces in this collection ("Sagesse" and "Winter Love") were written between 1957 and her death four years later, and are heretofore unpublished, except in fragments. We can see now in proper context her fine ear for the free line, and understand why other poets, such as Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan, find so much to admire in H. D.’s work. As in her earlier books, one level of H.D.’s significant poetic statement derives from her intimate knowledge of and identification with classical Greek and arcane cultures; taken together, these elements make up the poet’s own personal myth. Norman Holmes Pearson, H. D’s friend and literary executor, has contributed an illuminating foreword to this impressive collection. H. D.’s (Hilda Doolittle, 1884-1961) late poems of search and longing represent the mature achievement of a poet who has come increasingly to be recognized as one of the most important of her generation. The title poem and other long pieces in this collection ("Sagesse" and "Winter Love") were written between 1957 and her death four years later, and are heretofore unpublished, except in fragments. We can see now in proper context her fine ear for the free line, and understand why other poets, such as Denise Levertov, Robert Creeley, and Robert Duncan, find so much to admire in H. D.’s work. As in her earlier books, one level of H.D.’s significant poetic statement derives from her intimate knowledge of and identification with classical Greek and arcane cultures; taken together, these elements make up the poet’s own personal myth. Norman Holmes Pearson, H. D’s friend and literary executor, has contributed an illuminating foreword to this impressive collection.

“H. D's wit, sense of rhythm, and control of language prove the inadequacy of the imagist label that is so often applied to this writer.” —Library Journal This autobiographical novel, an interior self-portrait of the poet H. D. (1886-1961) is what can best be described as a "find,' a posthumous treasure. In writing HERmione, H.D. returned to a year in her life that was "peculiarly blighted." She was in her early twenties––"a disappointment to her father, an odd duckling to her mother, an importunate, overgrown, unincarnated entity that had no place… Waves to fight against, to fight against alone…'I am Hermione Gart, a failure’––she cried in her dementia, 'l am Her, Her, Her."' She had failed at Bryn Mawr, she felt hemmed in by her family, she did not yet know what she was going to do with her life. The return from Europe of the wild-haired George Lowndes (Ezra Pound) expanded her horizons but threatened her sense of self. An intense new friendship with Fayne Rabb (Frances Josepha Gregg), an odd girl who was, if not lesbian, then certainly of bisexual bent, brought an atmosphere that made her hold on everyday reality more tenuous. This stormy course led to mental breakdown, then to a turning point and a new beginning as her own true self, as "Her”––the poet H.D. Perdita Schaffner, H.D.'s daughter, who can remember back to the time in 1927 when her mother was barricaded with her typewriter behind a locked door, working on this very novel, has provided a charming and telling introduction.

Through the poetry of Wallace Stevens has been studied from a variety of critical perspectives, most critics share the view that Stevens is a secular poet who refuses religious definitions of man and nature. His major subject, it is thought, is poetry, which in its broadest sense stands as synecdoche for the possibilities that inhere in the mind engaged in creating itself even as it creates its art. This study confirms that Stevens's major concern is indeed poetry, but it proposes that when Steven speaks of the peerless poem qualified by such epithets as "grand" or "central" or "ultimate" or "supreme," he is not referring to the objective artifact with which we commonly associate the term but is rather outlining the contours of the Hermetic transcendental Man encountered in the course of spiritual meditation. Accordingly, art, in Steven's view, is a secondary or "lesser" form eventually superseded by the soul metamorphosed into an image of deity - what Stevens called "pure poetry" or the "ultimate poem." Woodman traces the appearance of the Heavenly Man of spiritual alchemy in "Owl's Clover," Steven's longest poem, and in the figure of the hero, a major motif in Stevens's work from the thirties on. She then considers the alchemical tradition to clarify the uses Steven made of its symbolic system. Succeeding chapters consider the relation of the Hermetic Man to the "supreme fiction"; the spiritual reciprocity between imagination and reality - variations of the Hermetic doctrine of correspondence; the decreation and recreation of self and nature that constitute the metamorphic stages of Hermetic meditation; and the Hermetic theory of transcendental perception that lies at the core of Steven's account of human transformation. The final chapter turns to Steven's native Pennsylvania to suggest the means by which he may have encountered the Rosicrucian tradition (the corporate form of modern Hermetism) that appears to have profoundly influenced his creative life.

They had been engaged for a period, and what began as a brief romance developed into a lifetime's friendship and collaboration in poetry. Throughout the reminiscence runs H. D's conviction that her life and Pound's had been irrevocably entwined since those early days when they had walked together in the Pennsylvania woods and he wrote for her verse after William Morris, Rossetti, Swinburne, and Chaucer. Twenty-five of these poems, handbound in vellum by Pound and called "Hilda's Book," are published here for the first time as an epilogue to this important and moving document.

"Bringing together Writing on the Wall, composed some ten years after H.D's stay in Vienna, and Advent, a journal she kept at the time of her analysis there, Tribute to Freud offers a rare glimpse into the consulting room of the father of psychoanalysis. It may also be the most intimate of H.D.'s works.Compelled by historical as well as personal crises, the poet worked with Freud during 1933-34. The streets of Vienna were littered with tokens dropped like confetti on the city, stating Hitler gives work. Hitler gives bread. Having endured World War I, she was now gathering her resources to face the second cataclysm she knew was approaching. In analysis, Hilda Doolittle explored her Pennsylvania childhood, her relationship with Ezra Pound (inventory of her nom de plume H.D.), Havelock Ellis, D.H. Lawrence, her ex-husband Richard Aldington, and subsequent companion Winifred Ellerman ( Bryher ), as well as her own creative processes.Freud, regarding H.D. as a student as well as a patient, wads hardly the detached presence one might imagine. Revealed here in the poet's words and in his own letters, which comprise an appendix, is the considerate friend, the charming Viennese gentleman--art collector, dog lover, wit--and the pioneer, always revising his ideas and possessed of an insight that could be terrifying in its force."--Publisher's description.

A woman struggles to understand her bisexuality and the failure of her marriage and becomes involved in a heterosexual affair.

Hermeticism, or alchemy, is the ancient, primordial mystery science of nature through which people in all times and places have, for the sake of world evolution, sought to unite Heaven and Earth--divinity, cosmos, earth, and humanity, as a single whole. Selfless, intimate, dedicated to healing and harmony, Hermeticism has accompanied and sustained every religious epoch and revelation. It may be found in all historical cultures, from the traditions of India and China in the East to the Judeo-Christian West. It could even be said that Hermeticism is the primal cosmological revelation and the common ground of all spiritual traditions. Nevertheless, in the great revival of mystical, esoteric traditions and practices during the last century, Hermetic tradition--in fact, Nature herself--has been largely ignored. Today, when the Earth seems most under attack, Green Hermeticism is especially appropriate. The book explores not only the ancient Masters' inner science, but also their science of Nature. During spring and summer 2006, Pir Zia Khan convened a series of gatherings to begin to unfold the contemporary meaning of ancient, sacred science for our time. Green Hermeticism is a partial record of that meeting. Peter Lamborn Wilson, explores the many ramifications of the alternative worldview offered by Hermeticism; Christopher Bamford provides a broad historical overview of the tradition from the Ancient Mysteries to contemporary manifestations of the alchemical tradition; while Kevin Townley brings a practical dimension to the gathering teaching the preparation of herbal elixirs and demonstrating that cosmology and philosophy can become a truly healing path for the Earth. Green Hermeticism is necessary reading for anyone seeking a spiritual and cultural path for the healing of the current ecological and cultural crisis. "In Alchemy, there is an injunction to quicken, or revive, the dead, which is illustrated by a dead tree growing verdant again. That is exactly what this wonderful and rare work does in awakening human consciousness to its Divine potential and Ultimate Destiny. Art thus helps Nature to achieve its ideal Perfection. The authors must be congratulated for their insightful words. I wholeheartedly recommend reading it again and again, and again." --Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, author Alchemy: The Secret Art and The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century "Environmental solutions today are largely technical, but the planetary crisis is also a crisis of soul--or better yet, of the Imagination. Too tricky for religion, too poetic for reductionist science, Green Hermeticism reheats a prophetic imagination still in love with the material world--a new alchemy of ancient nature." --Erik Davis, author, The Visionary State: A Journey through California's Spiritual Landscape "Just when you felt numb and disenfranchised, thinking the world had become bleak and dead, along comes this rare, much needed book to remind us that there is still some sanity, depth, and creative energy percolating up from the heart of Reality. Thank God (and the Goddess Nature) for this smart and inspiring breath of fresh air! Green Hermeticism is where the wasteland ends--and where the world becomes re-enchanted with genuine living thought that goes beyond superficialities. It's a rare pleasure to be in the presence of living minds who actually know something wonderful and have not been deadened by the opiates of capital or the tenure track. Very highly recommended." --David Fideler, publisher (Phanes Press) editor (Alexandria), author of Jesus Christ, Sun of God and translator of Love's Alchemy: Poems from the Sufi Tradition (with Sabrineh Fideler) "The publication of Green Hermeticism has the sense we so rarely get, of a genuine moment in cultural history. It is not just the eloquence of its authors' knowledge and arguments or that they are showing us, once again, the depth and range and beauty of alchemy, and the Hermetic tradition, and what Peter Lamborn Wilson calls Romantic Science. Nor is it even the links they establish between the Hermetic tradition and ecology, and the value of a science that perceives the world as alive rather than a machine. What makes this work significant is the sense that it shows us how we can use these ideas and knowledge to create a genuine counter to destruction and despair, an alchemy of our politics as well as of our spirit." --Rachel Pollack, author of 78 Degrees of Wisdom: A Book of Tarot "Green Hermeticism reminds us that the art of the Great Work is to enter more deeply into the dynamic and practical wisdom of the universe, which is our laboratory, where work and prayer combine. When we engage with the All, we know ourselves to be one kindred with all in the viriditas--God's greening power--where body, soul, and spirit honor each other." --Caitlín & John Matthews, authors of Walkers Between the Worlds: The Western Mysteries from Shaman to Magus

Living with her mother in Switzerland during the time of World War II, Madge moves from the concerns of childhood to the edge of the more adult woes of love and loss, separation and community.