Gwen Harwood; Selected Poems

Themes and Concerns

Key Themes • Youth/childhood/innocence• Age/maturity/experience/Identity• Family /love/relationships between children and parents

• Lives of women – domesticity, social expectations• Nostalgia/memories• Time and the inevitability of its passing/Nature• Loss/grief/comfort/consolation/relief/mortality and the transience of life

• Growth/ renewal/regeneration• Art/Creativity• Society and its institutions – Educational, Religious

Youth/Childhood/Innocence

Key Poems:• ‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’, ‘Father and Child – Nightfall’ and ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’

• ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’• ‘The Violets’• ‘Class of 1927’ – ‘Slate’, ‘The Spelling Prize’, ‘Religious Instruction’, ‘The Twins’

• ‘Prize-Giving’ and ‘Nightfall’• ‘Home of Mercy’

Childhood/InnocenceHarwood’s writing about childhood and innocence informed by the following:-the opposition of innocence/experience as seen in the poetry of the Romantics such as Blake (cf: “Songs of Innocence and Experience”) and biblical allusions, including the Garden of Eden, the Fall from grace of Lucifer, Adam and Eve, the idea of original sin-the notion of an individual’s progression from innocence to experience; the experiences which contribute to the loss of innocence -the idea that children are not always innocent; the child’s capacity for cruelty/rebelliousness-the role and effect of gender, peers, society, family, nature (both in the sense of genetics and of the natural world) on children-the effect of ‘nurture’ on the development of the child-the resilience/energy/electricity of childish spirit/mischievous youth/irreverent youth/the purity and wisdom of childhood innocence-the specific experiences of childhood in Brisbane in the 1920s

Childhood and Family‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’, ‘Father and Child – Nightfall’, ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’ ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’, ‘The Violets’, ‘The Twins’Ideas-The experience of family life in childhood will leave an indelible mark; parents are role models for their children-In rebelling against/wrestle against authority children may display naivete/arrogance/shortsightedness-A child’s assertion of independence from her family can be a cause of conflict; may leave scars/may later be viewed as cause for regret -Children may misjudge their capacity/readiness for independence-A parent can support/guide children as they develop a deeper moral understanding/as they experience growth of conscience/as they gain knowledge of death, loos and grief-Without the support of a loving family/parent a child may flounder as they move towards experience/maturity/an appreciation of the harsh realities of life/an awareness of life’s complexities/vicissitudes- Memories of the experience of family love/nurture/care/ritual can provide an enduring source of consolation in life

Childhood and Society‘Home of Mercy’, ‘Class of 1927’ suite, ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’ Ideas-Societal institutions/expectations/values seek to shape the lives and experiences of children -Society is often characterised/satirised/critiqued as regimented/hierarchical/punitive/hypocritical/discriminatory/intolerant/unforgiving/merciless-Often the impact of society is negatively contrasted with the influence of family in Harwood’s poetry-Children are exposed to cruel/brutal life lessons through the institutions of school and religion-Children are often misjudged/treated callously/viewed suspiciously/limited /restricted by society’s rules and conventions

Style and Technique• Motif of eyes to signify perception, awareness, insight; similarly ‘blindness’

• Symbols of wisdom – eg, owl, ‘Old Nay-Sayer• Light and dark – innocence and experience; good and evil• Lamplight/lamplit presences• Passage of time – daybreak/twilight• Angel/devil/demon; heaven/hell imagery• Biblical/religious allusions such as motif of original sin; Garden of Eden, fall from innocence, shame

• Pastoral style; childlike rhymes and rhythms • Use of contrast, oxymorons, antithesis• Use of specificity (eg, language) in evocation of childhood world

• Sensory imagery

Age/maturity

Key Poems:• ‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’, ‘Father and Child – Nightfall’ and ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’

• ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’• ‘The Violets’• ‘Class of 1927’ – ‘Slate’, ‘The Spelling Prize’, ‘Religious Instruction’, ‘The Twins’

• ‘Prize-Giving’• ‘Nightfall’• ‘Bone Scan’• ‘Autumn’

Maturity and Memory‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’, ‘Father and Child – Nightfall’, ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’, ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’, ‘The Violets’; ‘Class of 1927’ – ‘Slate’, ‘The Spelling Prize’, ‘Religious Instruction’, ‘The Twins’; ‘Nightfall’Ideas-The retrospective view of significant childhood moments of learning/epiphany/understanding-Nostalgic/yearning/elegiac/consoling/regretful view of the past-Experience of acceptance/embitterment/empowerment/understanding/self knowledge associated with retrospective memory-The reliability/unreliability of memory or the possibility of idealisation of the past in memory/the role of imagination in the act of remembering-The continuing influence of the past on the present-Recognition/apprehension of the power of memory to transcend the transience of life/ the passage of time/to balance the experience of grief and loss with joy and consolation

Maturity and Mortality ‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’, ‘Father and Child – Nightfall’, ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’, ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’; ‘Bone Scan’, ‘Autumn’Ideas-The capacity to understand and accept the perpetual connection between life and death/the transience of life/the experience of grief/loss/suffering-The use of the metaphor of sleep to describe death -The inevitable passing/passage of time/the seasons/the cycle of life-The sometimes graphic and disturbing physical and material reality of death and decay/the divide between mind and body-Spiritual belief/a sense of God’s omipotence/ a sense of wonder in nature/the temporal world/the as a source of consolation in the face of death/the approach of death/the end of life/imminent death-Human bonds/connections in alleviating pain and suffering -The existential question of the meaning of life

Experience and Growth‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’, ‘Father and Child – Nightfall’ and ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’, ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’, ‘The Violets’, ‘Class of 1927’ – ‘Slate’, ‘The Spelling Prize’, ‘Religious Instruction’, ‘The Twins’, ‘Prize-Giving’,‘Nightfall’Ideas-Experience of death is confronting/bewildering/disillusioning/humbling/distressing/can be isolating/solitary-Knowledge and understanding of the finality of death/the transience of life/the impermanence of time-Knowledge of human capacity for brutality and destructive action/cruelty of children/societal strictures which seeks to control and limit human experience/repressive nature of conformity-Sources of consolation may include family/cultural heritage/memory/nature/cycle of seasons/ a sense of a greater universe and one’s place within it/love/an awareness of God’s presence/Art/language-Paradox of life in death; fine line between life and death/fragility of life-Acceptance of self/self knowledge/acknowledgement of one’s sins/flaws/failings/hubris/failure to achieve one’s potential/resolution of inner struggle or conflict

Style and Technique• Imagery and motifs of the seasons, nature, astronomical – eg, Autumn, ‘ripeness’, the river, the violets, bird call, frogs

• Imagery of shifting perception – ‘scintillating bones’, eye motif, blindness

• Tone – satirical/elegiac/remorseful/elevated/philosophical

• Dark and light imagery• Sensory imagery• Motif of memory• Religious imagery and allusions; literary allusions such as references to King Lear

• Contrast – past/present, Europe/Australia, youth/age, Brisbane/Tasmania

Lives of women

Key Poems• ‘Home of Mercy’ • ‘In the Park’• ‘O Could One Write As One Makes Love’ • ‘Prize-Giving’ • ‘Burning Sappho’ • ‘Suburban Sonnet’ • ‘The Lion’s Bride’ • ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’ • ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’ • ‘Class of 1927 – The Twins’

Societal Expectations and Gender Roles

‘Home of Mercy’, ‘In the Park’, ‘Burning Sappho’, ‘Suburban Sonnet’, ‘The Lion’s Bride’, ‘The Secret Life of Frogs’ Harwood’s writing about gender roles and social expectations of women is informed by:-The growth of feminism and the Australian Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and its response to the values of patriarchal society in Australia-Her childhood in the 1920s Brisbane when traditional gender divisions dominated and masculinity was often associated with brute force and, in some cases, cruelty; and male chauvinism might have led to misguided assumptions about the intellectual superiority of men over women- Her often sympathetic portrayal of men and sometimes seemingly philosophical acceptance of differences between the genders; also of the potential for women to mistreat women (eg, ‘The Spelling Prize’ and ‘Home of Mercy’); consider the ambiguity of the persona’s gender in ‘Father and Child – Barn Owl’ -Her experience as a wife, mother, poet who in the Bulletin hoax challenged what she saw as the male-dominated literary establishment, a talented pianist-Her exploration of the ‘tension’/relationship between women’s reproductive roles/duties as wives and mothers, and their inner/creative/artistic/intellectual lives-Her bold/playful/mischievous/subversive use of pseudonyms, often male, for various reasons, such as her insistence that she is not the women personae who feature in poems such as ‘Burning Sappho’ and ‘In the Park’; also by using a male pseudonym she seems to wrest power and control from the male observer, takes control of the ‘male gaze’ -Her consideration of the ways in which society and its rules/conventions/institutions/values can be used to limit female independence/power/sexual freedom-The role of idealised notions of family/motherhood/femininity which often originate from systems of religious belief

Domestic Life and Mothering

‘Home of Mercy’, ‘In the Park’, ‘Burning Sappho’ ‘Suburban Sonnet’, ‘The Lion’s Bride’, ‘Mother Who Gave Me Life’, ‘Class of 1927 – The Twins’Ideas-That society holds up an idealised version (eg, based on the ‘Madonna and Child’ ideal, fairytale archetypes of princesses and ‘happy ever afters’) of mothering which is often not the reality for mothers-Women are judged harshly or characterised as deviant or immoral (eg, fallen, ‘ruined’, ‘soiled’ or having ‘come to grief’) if they do not follow the traditional path of virginal girlhood to sanctified marriage and motherhood; nb this idea implies a double standard in societal attitudes to men-Women’s freedom/creativity/intellectual pursuits/inner lives/identity/sense of self/passions can be limited/obliterated/consumed by their involvement in reproduction, marriage, motherhood- Women may struggle to feel contented in their roles as mother and mother; they may feel a certain ambivalence/resentment/a duality of emotions – both joy and pain/sense of entrapment-Women can be empowered by their participation in/experience of the tradition of mothering and domestic roles/crafts; -Women are empowered by the matrilineal heritage of mothers and daughters, which can be traced back and back in time and history to the most primitive and earliest human societies, and which is imbued with a profound love and altruism-The rhythms of domesticity run parallel to the rhythms of the seasons/nature and can be seen to be imbued with a significance which transcends the ordinary and mundane; may be seen as having a spiritual significance

Female Sexuality‘Home of Mercy’, ‘In the Park’, ‘O Could One Write As One Makes Love’, ‘Prize-Giving’, ‘Burning Sappho’, ‘The Lion’s Bride’Ideas -Female sexuality which sits outside the patriarchy which defines women in terms of their relationship to men (as daughters, wives, mothers) may be treated as aberrant behaviour by society-Female sexuality can be powerful/liberating/elemental/essential/intimidating/unsettling/subversive/threatening to the patriarchy/creative-Female sexuality and beauty is to be celebrated

Style and Technique• Subversion of archetypes (eg, bride, mother, virgin) , conventions (sonnet) and the familiar lines of the Our Father ‘Forgive me the wisdom…’; sometimes reinforces and embraces these same archetypes (eg, in ‘The Violets’ an image of the holy family, in ‘The Twins’ an image of the absent mother as ‘an angel’ who ‘welcomes two children home from school’

• Paradox and ambivalence – motherhood both joyous and oppressive; notion of doubleness (eg, ‘Burning Sappho’ and ‘monster grins’, ‘a fiend’)

• Use of pseudonyms• Colour symbolism – Titian, goldbrown hair• Allusions to powerful female entities in mythology – Sappho, the Pleiades (seven daughters of Titan Atlas and Oceanid Pleione, Seven Sisters constellation)

• Contrasting of patriarchal with matrilineal heritage• Motifs of domesticity and motherhood – milk, fabric, nursing, nausea, nourishment,lamplight

• Repeated phrases – ‘my father’s house’, description of fathers as ‘king’, ‘the big boys’

• Motifs of clothing, appearance to suggest the male gaze and judgement of women

Art/Creativity

Key Poems• ‘O Could One Write As One Makes Love’• ‘Prize-Giving’• ‘Nightfall’• ‘Burning Sappho’• ‘Suburban Sonnet’• ‘New Music’• ‘Autumn’• To Music’

Expression of Self and Human Experience

‘O Could One Write As One Makes Love’, ‘Prize-Giving’, ‘Nightfall’, ‘Burning Sappho’, ‘Suburban Sonnet’, ‘New Music’, ‘Autumn’, ‘To Music’Ideas-The limits in expressing the elemental nature of human experience/the potential for language to capture ‘mind’s desire,/as original as light and fire’-The capacity of music/art to express ‘all passion or despair’; to (re)invigorate/ to electrify/ to provide a new ‘way of seeing’ or ‘perceiving’ (eg, ‘At the service of a human vision,/not symbols, but strange presences/defining a transparent void,/these notes beckon the mind to move/out of the smiling context of/ what’s known; and what can guide it is/neither wisdom not power, but love.’) -Art as immortal, transcendent, universal; Romantic tradition of art as a means to exploring the mystery of being human and the importance of feeling and the imagination; also of communion with nature/landscape-The demands of art on the soul of the artist – ‘the devils burning in my brain’; the determination of the artist to create and give expression to their artistic vision-Sometimes life’s demands make it hard to find time for artistic pursuits and sometimes they seem less important than the immediate concerns of daily existence (eg, in ‘Suburban Sonnet’ consider the persona’s resignation to the fact that ‘it can matter/to no one now if she plays well or not’ and her self deprecating acknowledgement that Rubenstein ‘yawned’ when she played for him)

Art as Sustaining and Transformative

‘Prize-Giving’, ‘Nightfall’, ‘Burning Sappho’, ‘New Music’, ‘Autumn’, ‘To Music’Ideas-Mastery of the artist can be imposing, even in the very young (eg, Professor Eisenbart’s intimidation by ‘girl with titian hair’ and in ‘Nightfall’ the pupil who outclasses the teacher who is reduced to clawing ‘ a fine gilt chair’)-The artist’s sense of identity can be bound up with their ability to perform/excel at their art (eg, Professor Krote with his ‘wild musician’s hair’ who struggles with his ‘soul’s night’ as a ‘second-rate musician in an ignorant town’.- Connections between art and the natural world/the elemental/astronomical; often as nature is a source of inspiration and a model of aesthetic perfection-Art can inspire wonder and awe (eg, ‘Who can grasp for the first time those notes hurled into empty space?’)-The, at times, tense relationship between artist and audience, artist and critic, artist and their peers

Style and Technique • Use of traditional forms and free verse; references to musical forms (eg, fugue)

• Use of sound features to evoke music and contrast sounds of music with dissonance of domestic setting

• Allusions to the great artists and artworks – Mozart (nb child prodigy), Shakespeare, Scarlatti, the echoes of the Romantic tradition in Harwood’s work, Greek lyric poet Sappho, Rubenstein, Larry Sitsky

• Associations with time – how can time be carved out for the artist to complete her work (eg,’Burning Sappho’ use of time in structure)

• Imagery of fire, light, demons/monsters/hell, cosmos• Sensory imagery (eg, ‘our colour vision, our taste for sweetness./What gave us our salty rapture then/ at a cry from the stage’)