The poems in ["Hermetic Definition"] date from circa 1960, when [H. D.] was 74. She had been inserted into literary history at 26, when Ezra Pound invented "Imagism" to supply a context for five poems of hers….

Unhappily the invented movement that was meant to float her reputation encapsulated it, and though she lived many more decades and extended her self-definition through many volumes, she has remained totally identified with the very little she had done when she was first heard of….

The first section of "Hermetic Definition" addresses a comer who is partly angel, partly several remembered men, partly the head of the Paris Bureau of Newsweek, who catalyzed the poem by stopping by for an interview…. His eyes compelled her, and he took her mind to Paris, where the statues on Notre Dame make an anthology of secret gods….

Anyone's eyes, the cadence of any voice, might bring a...