Gwen Harwood

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Gwen Harwood AO, born in June 1920, née Gwendoline Nessie Foster, an Australian poet and librettist.

Gwen Harwood is one of Australia's best poets, with over 420 publications, including 386 poems and 13 librettos.

She has received numerous poetry awards and accolades, as well as one of Australia's most coveted poetry awards, the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize has been named for her.

Her work is often taught in schools and university courses. Gwen Harwood was the mother of author John Harwood.

Life

Harwood was born in Taringa, a Brisbane suburb. She attended Brisbane Girls Grammar School and was an organist at All Saints' Church as a child. She earned a diploma in music education and then worked as a typist at the War Damage Commission from 1942. She developed an interest in literature, philosophy, and music early in her life.

Bill Harwood married linguist Bill Harwood in September 1945, just after which they moved to Oyster Cove south of Hobart as he was appointed a lecturer at the University of Tasmania. "The entire opus" is here, reflecting her lifelong interest in philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's work.

Her father played piano, violin, guitar, and the flute. Both Gwen and her brother were given piano lessons, and Gwen wanted to be a guitarist from the start. Gwen's grandmother introduced her to poetry; this inspired her and became her lifelong calling and passion.

Source

Literary career

Harwood had written poetry for many years, and her first poem was published in Meanjin in 1944, but her work didn't appear in journals and books until the 1960s. Poems, her first book of poems, was published in 1963 and Poems Volume II followed in 1968. The Lion's Bride (1981), Bone Scan (1988), and The Present Tense (1995). A Selected Poems collection has also appeared, including one from Penguin in 2001.

In her early career, Harwood used a variety of pseudonyms, including Walter Lehmann, W. W. Hagendoor (an anagram of her name), Francis Geyer, Timothy (TF) Kline, Miriam Stone, and Alan Carvosso. The majority of her poems that were initially submitted under her own name were rejected. Meanjin, C.B. Christesen's editor had previously rejected a poem from Harwood but used the term "the freckled shade" as the beginning of one of his own poems. In 1961, the Bulletin accepted a sonnet from Walter Lehmann, her alter ego, but only after it was published that the editor, Donald Horne, was alerted that the first letters of each line contained the word "FUCK ALL EDITORS." She found a new sense of belonging after this.

Larry Sitsky, James Penberthy, Don Kay, and Ian Cugley wrote libretti for composers.

She corresponded with many poets, including Vincent Buckley, A. D. Hope, Vivian Smith, and Norman Talbot, as well as family and others, including Tony Riddell, who died before, and two volumes of her letters were published. She served as president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers in Tasmania.

Many students completing the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in Victoria, Australia, have been using her poetry, as well as the Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) students in Western Australia, Australia.

Source

Awards

• 1959: Meanjin Poetry Prize
• 1960: Meanjin Poetry Prize
• 1975: Grace Leven Prize for Poetry
• 1977: Robert Frost Medallion (now known as Christopher Brennan Award)
• 1978: Patrick White Award
• 1980: The Age Book of the Year Award and Non-fiction Award for Blessed City
• 1988: University of Tasmania Honorary D.Litt.
• 1989: Officer of the Order of Australia (AO)
• 1989: Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Bone Scan
• 1990: J. J. Bray Award
• 1993: University of Queensland honorary doctorate
• 1994: La Trobe University honorary doctorate
• 2005: Tasmanian Honour Roll of Women inducted for service to the arts