H.D. and Elisa Gabbert

Whether or not Elisa Gabbert has read and been influenced by Helen Doolittle, they are both woman poets on opposite ends of the women's movement. In form, they both match their times. H.D. was a part of the imagist movement, and puts her poetry on the page in a semi-traditional layout. Gabbert, equally fitting for her age, has no titles, line breaks, or rhythm to her poetry. Her poems are almost like short poetic commentary snippets on various subjects--profound and pleasurable to read, nonetheless.
In content, however, H.D. and Gabbert share much more commonality. H.D.'s poem "Eurydice" is based on a Greek myth in which Eurydice, Orpheus's wife, is bitten and killed by a snake. Orpheus goes to the underworld to save her and is told that if he takes Eurydice and does not look back he will  be able to save  her. Just like Lot's wife, of course, he looks back and loses Eurydice forever. In one of Gabbert's poems she ironically reports, "as the women's movement progresses, women report less happiness" (The Self Unstable 26). She counters this in the same poem, however, with, "Most people choose power over happiness" (26). She seems to be saying that whether or not women or more happy now, she's satisfied with having the power to influence her own happiness. H.D.'s poem seems to be saying the same thing. An unfortunate event took Eurydice's life, and from that point on her destiny was completely in the hands of a man. And that man let her down.