Gwen Harwood
1920-1995
An introduction to her life and work
Who is Gwen Harwood?
Born in Brisbane, she lived most of her life in Tasmania
She had a happy childhood in Queensland
Harwood joined a nunnery for six months
She married and had four children
Her writing career began in her 30s
Oyster Cove
Who is Gwen Harwood?
She was passionate about language and music
She loved being a mother and a grandmother
She wrote very personal letters to Thomas Riddell – a man who was not her husband – and dedicated all her volumes of poetry to him for 45 years
Who is Gwen Harwood?
She played games with publishers and readers
She challenged the establishment and its values
She survived cancer in 1985, many poems draw on this experience
Why look at contextual information?
We read her poems for signs of parallel with her private life
We gain meaning of her texts through knowledge of her personal life
The poet herself had to negotiate the complex relationship between her private and public life
Masks and Disguises
Harwood developed personae, using ‘disguises’ for different purposes. Harwood is sometimes not the ‘I’ in her poetry. She sometimes writes in the voice of an invented character.
She often used pseudonyms also. She published under a variety false names.
The Pseudonyms
Timothy Klue – an angry young man
Walter Lehman – he writes about Professor Eisenbart, an arrogant academic
Francis Geyer – a Hungarian refugee who writes about a musician called Krote
Miriam Stone – a Jewish housewife from Armidale NSW
Why?
Gwen Harwood wanted to get her work published as much as possible
Some poems rejected under her real name were accepted under male pseudonyms
When she became ‘known’ she was concerned that she was being published not on her merits but because of her name
The great Bulletin hoax of 1961
Two sonnets, written by Walter Lehman, were acrostics: SO LONG BULLETIN and F--- ALL EDITORS
This was discovered by a Melbourne Uni Student
The offending issue was recalled and an apology published
Scandal!
This was an anti-establishment act. Here was a woman in her 40s telling the establishment to get F---d
Right up until the day she died she kept people guessing, refusing to deny that she published under different names
One of Australia’s most acclaimed poets:
Harwood uses traditional metres and forms
Her work is seen as ‘European’ rather than Australian
She is an intellectual who is critical of academics
Her work is passionate and sexual
Harwood’s final word:
The affirmation of the value of friendship is one of the most striking characteristics of her work
She said: ‘My life is linked together by very long friendships. It is good in your 60th year to have friends who love you still, in spite of your faults.’