Ange Milinko on The H.D. Book and Duncan

From the Nation, Ange Milinko on The H.D. Book and Duncan. Contains this moment:

If responsibility to poetry was at odds with "success," then poetry for Duncan was a rebellion initiated, nourished and encouraged by women because they were so often denied a chance to succeed. Miss Keough was his "Beatrice," Athalie and Lili were his "audience," his "nurses," but H.D. was something altogether different: a master. Is the sexual agon between men and women so fierce that only a gay man could place a woman in that role? Duncan too speculated: "Men live uneasily with or under the threat of genius in women."