["Hermetic Definition"] is an important revelation of [H. D.'s] understanding of the life of a poet. At the start of her career in 1913, by the act of adopting the pen name "H. D.," she had separated her identity as Hilda Doolittle from her role as poet. In this poem, written almost fifty years later, she offered a "hermetic definition" of what that separation had meant….

The poem consists of three parts—"Red Rose and a Beggar," "Grove of Academe," and "Star of Day"—and each part has a pair of dates appended to its title…. [By] including these dates H. D. calls attention to the importance of time in the poem. Her real subject, in fact, is the relationship between the timeless state in which completed poems exist and particular moments in the life of the poet, especially those involved in the writing of poetry. (p. 52)

Throughout...