Finding H.D.

Finding H.D. is a multi-year community exploration of the life and work of Bethlehem-born poet, memoirist and fiction writer, Hilda Doolittle, who published under the pen name H.D. Through a series of public humanities and public arts events, Finding H.D. has welcomed the people of Bethlehem and the broader Lehigh Valley into a process of discovering, together, the legacy of the most influential literary figure born in this community. H.D.’s innovative poetry and prose established her as a leader of the early 20th-century modernist literary movement and she is widely celebrated today as a queer, feminist visionary and eloquent advocate for peace. H.D. drew on experiences of her hometown throughout her long writing life and she remains one of the most perceptive interpreters of Bethlehem’s history. By searching for H.D., we seek to understand who we have been and who we hope to become as a community.