Gwen Harwood Critical Study
Gwen Harwood, An Australian poet who, seems to develop an imaginative, rich form of poetry through the use of recurring themes, complex language techniques and even further through the use of sophisticated structures only seen in the most prestigious of poems in the modern era. Gwen Harwood has a tendency to write poetry that is significant in all eras, cultures and/or societies of the world as she captures, and develops them into a strong universal theme that recurs strongly. These themes seem to endure, and portray the human experience by relating these in forms that resonate through a range of various environments; these poems have an immense structural integrity. These themes are depicted powerfully in poems such as; Father and Child, Violets the 2 poems that I have chosen to discuss in this speech. In the Father and child, it has a unique structure of 2 parts; the 1st (Barn Owl) discusses her loss of innocence in the daughter’s perspective in the past, the second part (Nightfall) Being the downfall to her father, how he is put in an degenerative state, slowly falling to his demise. This is to do with Gwen accepting the inevitability of her father’s death. These 2 poems can be read symbiotically in a dual nature to provide further insight into both their poems, or separately as a poem. The language in the first poem is quite unique. It highlights the use of very simple words, with little complexity, this can be interpreted to show the innocence that the child still possesses, as children (better yet an innocent child) are meant to speak with less complexity than a full grown adult. These sentences also tend to be monosyllabic. ‘I knew my prize, who swooped home at this hour’ are all monosyllabic. As the poem continues, especially after the owl is shot, the child’s vocabulary seems to improve in complexity, losing its monosyllabic nature. This can symbolize the loss of innocence that the child had experienced by killing the owl senselessly. Gwen also uses many