Gwen Harwood
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Gwen Harwood (8 June 1920 - 9 December 1995), née Gwendoline Nessie Foster, was an Australian poet and librettist. She was born in Taringa, Queensland and brought up in Brisbane. She attended Brisbane Girls Grammar School and was an organist at All Saints Church when she was young. She moved to Tasmania after her marriage to William Harwood.
Gwen Harwood is regarded as one of Australia's finest poets and her work is commonly studied in schools and university courses. She has won numerous poetry awards and prizes, including a prize for a collection of her early letters called Blessed City.
Gwen Harwood's first book of poems Poems, was published in 1963, followed by Poems Volume II in 1968. Other books include The Lion's Bride (1981), Bone Scan (1988), and The Present Tense (1995). There are also several versions of a Selected Poems, including one from Penguin in 2001.
Harwood's early work is notable for using numerous pseudonyms, some of which have only been uncovered by literary detective work, such as Walter Lehmann, W.W. Hagendoor, Francis Geyer, Timothy (TF) Kline, Miriam Stone, and Alan Carvosso.
Harwood's poetry has recurring themes of motherhood and the stifled role of women, particularly those of young mothers. Music is another recurring motif. Harwood herself was an accomplished pianist and organist. The Tasmanian landscape, and Aboriginal dispossession of that landscape, form another theme in much of her writing. She also wrote series of poems with recurring characters, two of the most notorious being Professor Eisenbart and Krote.
[edit] Bibliography
Poetry
- Poems. (1963)
- Poems Volume Two. (1968)
- The Lion's Bride. (1981)
- Bone Scan. (1988)
- The Present Tense, ed. Alison Hoddinott (Imprint, 1995) ISBN 1-875892-28-1
- Gwen Harwood: Selected Poems. (Penguin, 2001) ISBN 0-14-100668-4
- Gwen Harwood: Collected Poems 1943-1995. (UQP, 2003) ISBN 0-7022-3352-8
Letters
- Blessed City: Letters to Thomas Riddell 1943, ed. Alison Hoddinott (Angus & Robertson, 1990) ISBN 0-207-16587-4
- A Steady Storm of Correspondence: Selected Letters of Gwen Harwood 1943-1995, ed. Gregory Kratzmann (UQP, 2001) ISBN 0-7022-3257-2
Scondary sources
- Jenniger Strauss. Boundary Conditions: The Poetry of Gwen Harwood. (UQP, 1992) ISBN 0-7022-2412-X
- Stephanie Trigg. Gwen Harwood. (OUP, 1994) ISBN 0-19-553280-5
[edit] External links
- An analysis of the writings of Gwen Harwood
- Bored of Studies - FAQ - Gwen Harwood
- Gwen Harwood by Stephanie Trigg (Pdf)
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Harwood, Gwen |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Twentieth century Australian poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 8 June 1920 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Taringa, Queensland, Australia |
| DATE OF DEATH | 9 December 1995 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Hobart, Tasmania, Australia |
 |
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