Gwen Harwood- Poetry Analysis

By Lucas Aoun (Lokzo)

POETRY OVERVIEW

Suburban Sonnet - SHOMZT The Lion’s Bride - SWIBC

Father and Child, Barn Owl - FIRECHONWL Father and Child, Nightfall II - SLYSWYTQG

Burning Sappho – SAIDDIM The Violets- WHEYIAClass of 1927, Slate - REMOLBSWClass of 1927, Spelling Prize - GWS

In The Park - BOATFHWThe Secret Life of Frogs – BIBSPAt Mornington - Of Music – LSB

To Music – NLM

HANDY IDEAS AND WORDS• Pseudonyms (Walter Leahmann and Miriam Stone)• Indentations to represent temporal shifts• Juxtaposition/Epistrophe/Paralleled/Enjambment/Rhetorical question/Hyperbole/What is Harwood using this to

say?/Universal themes• Loss of innocence/Growth/maturity/psychological development/equipping a child with the tools they need to survive• Understanding and sensitivity about being human• Dark side of motherhood• Textual integrity• Domestic sphere/Banality/Subservient/Imprisoning• Powerful continuum of memory to nourish and sustain our future/Rejuvenating powers of memory • Time is the enemy, but memory can hold off the loss of time/Revitalizes the persona during hardship or transitioning

for guidance/comfort• Death is inevitable • Stimulus (Frogs, Violets, Slate)• The power of memory in salvation of the transience• Cliché conversations – lacking substance• False façade/enslaved • Detracting from their innermost desire to be creative• Patriarchal/depersonalizes the woman• Institutions = Marriage, Motherhood, Parenthood, School• School = Hierarchical/order/ranking/arrangement/competition• Childhood memory having a prolonged effect on our lives• Transition from innocence to experience • Visceral/powerful/confronting/traumatic/shocking/human nature

Suburban Sonnet - SHOMZT

• “She hushes them”• “Her veins ache”• “Once she played for Rubinstein”• “Mousetrap”• “Zest and love drain out with soapy water”• “Tasty dishes from stale bread”

The Lion’s Bride - SWIBC

• “Scented veil”• “Warm human smell”• “Icy spectre sheathed in silk• “Breathed our secret name”• “Come soon, share this meal”

Father and Child, Barn Owl - FIRECHONWL

• “For what I had begun”• “I knew my prize”• “Robbed of power”• “End what you have begun”• Not “Clean and final” but “Obscene”• “Horny fiend”• “Owl blind”• “No sayer” • Instead of being “Whisp haired judge” becomes a

“lonely child”

Father and Child, Nightfall II - SLYSWYTQG

• “Stick thin comforter”• “Let us walk this hour as if death has no power”• “You take this walk for my sake”• “Sunset”• “Who can be what you were”• “Your cheeks brushes on mine”• “Things truly named can never vanish from our

earth”• “Grown to learn”

Burning Sappho – SAIDDIM

• “Scandals and pregnancies are shared”• “Anger forks between my child and me”• “Inside my smile a monster grins”• “Deathless verse”• “Days trivial anger cease”• “I take my pen/a kind friend wishes to gossip”• “My thighs a fleshless devil chops him to bits

with hell cold evil”

The Violets- WHEYIA

• “Where’s morning gone?”• “Her long hair falling down to her waist”• “Even when my father whistling came from work”• “Years cannot move”• “Nor deaths disorienting scale distort those lamplit

presences”• “I kneel to pick frail melancholy flowers among the

ashes and loam”• “Ambiguous light. Ambiguous sky.”

Class of 1927, Slate - REMOLBS

• “Ranked by examination”• “Escape the cane”• “Mischief purely for micshief’s sake”• “Obedient-angel minded”• “Loo, stuff”• “Bonehead” contrasted with the “Doctors son”• “Sat the dim, the slack”• “best marks at the back”

Class of 1927, Spelling Prize - GWS

• “Give Ella a chance”• “Worthless prize”• “Sixty years I’ve regretted this”

In The Park - BOATFHW

• “But for the grace of God”• “Out of date”• “Aimless”• “To the wind she says, they have eaten me alive”• “Flickering light”• “How nice. Etcetera”• “Whine and bicker”• “Neat head”

The Secret Life of Frogs – BIBSP

• “Brothel”• “In hands that would not do them wrong”• “Blew them up and spiked them”• “Stretcher-bearer”• “Poor George”

“Of Music” – LSB

• “Lulled into comfort”• “Speaks peace to nerves”• “Be at rest”

• “IF GOD EXISTS, THEN MUSIC IS HIS LOVE FOR ME”

“To Music” – NLM

• “Nowhere without a human ear”• “Lifts and buses, in discos everywhere”• “Made of the very air we breathe”