A Poetic Romance

Poets H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) of Bethlehem and Idaho-born Ezra Pound met when Pound studied at Penn and H.D. was a student at Bryn Mahr. While their passionate love affair would end, the two remained close as Pound became the most influential poet of his day while H.D., a lesbian, would flourish as a champion of feminist values. Their turbulent relationship is captured in Don Swaim’s extensively researched article in the fall/winter 2025 issue of Neshaminy, The Bucks County Literary Journal.

During World War 2, H.D. remained in London during the Blitz to show support for the Allies and to “bear witness.” But Pound, as an expatriate in Italy, delivered pro-Fascist, antisemitic radio broadcasts extolling Hitler and Mussolini. After the war’s end, he was put on trial in the U.S. as a traitor, found to be of unsound mind, and ordered to a Washington, DC, mental hospital. He was released after 13 years following an outpouring by the nation’s most prominent literary figures. His first stop after given his freedom: his boyhood home in Wyncote.

The article includes exclusive interviews with the late Pound publisher James Laughlin of New Directions Books and H.D. expert Prof. Scott Paul Gordon of Lehigh University. H.D. is buried in Bethlehem’s Nisky Hill Cemetery.

Neshaminy Managing Editor William J. Donahue writes that until he read Swaim’s article he knew few details about the H.D. /Pound relationship, their local connection, and their colorful and complicated lives. Donahue also says that in this issue, he learned more about the history and importance of Delaware Valley University in Walter Ault’s article detailing how today’s university evolved from a small farm school founded in 1896.

Also in the current issue: Jim Brennan and David Stoller remember the late author, journalist, broadcaster, and raconteur Daniel Dorian of New Hope, with an original portrait of Dorian by Bucks County artist Dyan Law. A profile of cover-artist Jennifer Hansen Rolli, and a quick look at the historic Sellersville Theater. William J. Donahue’s memoir about the intersection between the lowest point in his life and a local family who finds hope, love, and even humor in a loved one's struggle with terminal illness. J.I. Zimmerman writes of a grandfather who demonstrates the power of love and death on the Delaware River. A fictional account of 18th century Anglo/Irish author Oliver Goldsmith’s misadventures in America. Poetry by J.A. Lagana, Arlene Geller, Kalman Stein, and Spencer J. Szwalbenest, and a study of the long-forgotten poets of Bucks County’s distant past.

The fall/winter 2025 issue of Neshaminy: The Bucks County Literary Journal is available at local bookstores and via Amazon.com.