Trevor's Writing

Poem: Prize-Giving by Australian poet Gwen Harwood

            I thoroughly enjoyed reading and rereading this poem. Professor Eisenbart appears in a number of other poems, and along with Professor Krote they are a vehicle for Harwood to bring her musical interests into her poetry. From a technical point of view this is another example of Harwood’s fine skill as a poet. It is in iambic pentameter throughout with a very regular rhyming pattern (abcbca).

            The poem is filled with sexual tension, just like the room is filled with teenage girls: ‘He shook/ indifferently a host of virgin hands.’ It is not until one girl in particular attracts his attention, and as she rises to receive her prize, and to play, he is aroused by this ‘girl with titian hair.’ ‘He took/ her hand, and felt its voltage fling his hold/ from his calm age and power.’

            At first he had refused to attend the prize-giving event. He reluctantly agrees to come and finds the whole affair rather tedious until this girl grabs his attention. The ‘titian hair’ or red hair is symbolic of this girl’s attraction to this old fuddy-duddy academic. Titian is the name given to red-haired people after the Venetian painter Titian who mostly painted his portraits depicting red-haired subjects. One of his more famous paintings is of the Biblical Salome, regarded by many as an idealization of beauty. She was an icon of the female seductress, and her erotic dance resulted in the beheading of John the Baptist. Red-haired people have often been depicted in art and literature as having beastly sexual desires.

            Professor Eisenbart realises his foolishness after the girl finishes playing. He ‘peered into a trophy which suspended/ his image upside down: a sage fool trapped/ by music in a copper net of hair.’ The metaphors used by Harwood in this poem are a delight.

Reference:

• Harwood, Gwen, 2001: Selected Poems. Penguin, Camberwell.

Poem: Suburban Sonnet by Australian poet Gwen Harwood

I found this poem to be most unsatisfactory at first. Technically, it is called a sonnet but it is a poorly written one when I compare it to most of Harwood’s technically beautiful poems. While it does have a regular rhyming scheme like many other sonnets (abab cdcd efg efg) it is not strictly in iambic pentameter throughout. (To be fair, even the great GM Hopkins broke this “rule” on many occasions.)

I am particularly concerned about the last line. The stressed syllables are not iambic like the rest of the poem, and this has the effect of jarring on the reader. I can’t help but wonder if this was done deliberately by the poet in order to highlight the shattered dreams of the subject.

The poem is about a young mother who practices her piano playing while two toddlers play and fight around her feet. This could well have been a reflection on the poet’s own unrealised ambitions to play professionally. Her young family have stolen her dreams and she now wallows in a suburban nightmare of crying children, pots boiling over, washing dishes and thinking only of how to make ends meet by reading articles like Tasty dishes from stale bread. The irony of the symbolic dead mouse only reflects her own musical goals which are effectively like the corpse of the mouse.

Reference:

Harwood, Gwen, 2001, Selected Poems. Penguin, Camberwell.

Poem: The Violets by Australian poet Gwen Harwood

            In this very lyrical poem the poet again harks back to times when she was a child growing up in Queensland. It had been a hot afternoon, and she had obviously needed an afternoon nap. On waking she innocently asks her mother for breakfast. She gently scolded ‘It will soon be night, you goose.’ She wonders where the day, especially the morning, has disappeared, and grieves for the lost time.

            There is a circular movement of thought within the poem. At the beginning she is kneeling to pick some violets, ‘frail melancholy flowers’ she calls them, and the poem concludes with the line, ‘Faint scent of violets drifts in air.’ They symbolise the sad feeling she has when she realises that a part her day has been stolen by the unconsciousness of sleep.

            There are some very lyrical lines in this poem. Expressions such as ‘The melting west is striped like ice-cream’ and ‘dusk surrendered pink and white/ to blurring darkness’ are quite memorable.

            The poem is written in iambic tetrameter throughout. It also has a consistent and very complex rhyming scheme (abcdcabd).

Reference:

Harwood, Gwen, 2001, Selected Poems. Penguin, Camberwell.

Poem: In Hospital by Australian poet Gwen Harwood

            This poem graphically relates the pain and distress the poet experienced at one point in her life. ‘I dare not stir/ for what may wake, for what pain may wake.’ Anyone who has endured excruciating pain knows too well that the anticipation of pain is sometimes just as bad as the real thing.

            Momentarily though, she experiences freedom from pain when her daughter brings a jar full of a child’s sea-side treasures gathered on a visit to the beach. This brings a flood of pleasant memories, and I felt, as the reader, swept along in the touch, taste and smells of the salty objects in the jar. It was like being there.

            But suddenly the pain returns: ‘Pain splinters me./ I am cracked like glass.’ That is a stunning metaphor. Throughout the poem she relates the agony of the pain, and contrasts that with the peace of that holiday when she ran on the beach with her child.

            The poem is unmetered and has a very complex rhyming scheme (abcbaddc).

Reference:

Harwood, Gwen, 2001, Selected Poems. Penguin, Camberwell.

 

Poem: Father and Child: Barn Owl by Australian poet Gwen Harwood

            I was devastated by the incident related in this poem. I am a birder (the more modern term for ‘birdwatcher’) and take every opportunity to go out and observe birds. I have written a blog about birds for over three years. This blog now numbers over 800 articles – with photos – about birds. I have over 600 enthusiastic readers every day from all parts of the world. I love birds. To deliberately and coldly shoot such a beautiful creature as a Barn Owl is unthinkable to me. The thought turns my stomach like the day, as a young man in the wrong company, I was urged on to shoot a kangaroo. Viewing the remains devastated me and I cannot recall having picked up a gun ever since.

            Harwood relates a similar devastation at seeing her own horror at what she had done reflected in the bird’s eyes: ‘I saw/ those eyes that did not see/ mirror my cruelty.’ Her father orders her to ‘end what you have begun,’ and she shoots again to finish off the bird, weeping at what had been done. It was an act of defiance on the part of an innocent child, an innocence shattered by that one gun shot at daybreak.

            There is a sequel to this poem. It is a two part poem, the second part being called Nightfall. It relates an incident forty years later when her father is eighty, blind and near death. The solid father/child relationship forged in the barn that morning when the owl was shot is stronger than ever. Now, however, it is the father who is the innocent one: ‘Your passionate face is grown/ to ancient innocence.’

            Both poems are written in seven stanzas of six lines. Both are in iambic trimeter with a regular rhyming pattern (ababcc).

Reference:

• Harwood, Gwen, 2001, Selected Poems. Penguin, Camberwell.