A thematic discussion of Gwen Harwood’s poems focusing on: Suburban Sonnet, In the Park, Father and Child (Barn Owl and Nightfall), Class of 1927 (Slate, The Spelling Prize, Religious Instruction, The Twins), Prize-Giving, The Secret Life of Frogs, The Violets, The Lion’s Bride, Mother Who Gave Me Life. (Dr Jennifer Minter, English Works, 17/11/2016)
The feminine and the mother
Many of Gwen Harwood’s poems celebrate womanhood and the multiple roles associated with the feminine. The depiction of women’s hardships that are often connected with domestic and maternal duties, elicits much sympathy and admiration for the women who are often trapped in difficult circumstances. Although they may appear dissatisfied and overwhelmed by circumstances, the poet also emphasizes women’s strength and determination as they strive to find a balance that affords satisfaction and the possibility of self-expression and individuality.
In this regard, Harwood endorses the strength and determination of her women characters as they strive to overcome the trials and tribulations associated with domestic and maternal duties. Finding a balance between these duties and individual freedom and creativity remains a constant challenge and source of tension. This friction, arising from the children’s unharnessed wildness and their passionate and vibrant natures, which conflict with a mother’s restraining role, often acts as a catalyst for change. Women are encouraged to find a balance between caregiving duties and personal fulfilment.
Many of Harwood’s poem are written during the post-war era when family values were prioritised. As a consequence the mother often feels trapped. She struggles to exert control over her domestic circumstances which leads to feelings of despair and resentment. For example, the poems, “In the Park” and “Suburban Sonnet” focus on the mundane and trivial aspects of domesticity that challenge a post-war glorification of family values. Both poems use the elevated form of a sonnet, with its implied meaning of beauty and fulfillment, to show the extent of the mother’s boredom and sense of loss and to reflect the poet’s anti-romantic stance.
Furthermore, the “Suburban Sonnet” is written under the pseudonym of Miriam Stone which allows Harwood to voice controversial and possibly unpopular opinions about motherhood.
Rather than presenting motherhood in terms of a stereotypical ideal, and an intrinsic source of joy and happiness, the poet suggests that the maternal role can lead to despair, especially for those who struggle with little support.
Both poems use the impersonal third person pronoun reference to “she”, to capture the mother’s universal sense of alienation and drudgery. The woman is identified through her relationship with the children, and struggles to establish a separate sense of identity.
The first line, “She sits in the park” reflects the mother’s sense of duty and the visit to the park is depicted as a chore rather than a delight. Likewise, the impersonal mother in “Suburban Sonnet”, “she hushes them”, “she rushes to the stove”, is stuck in the kitchen. The poet describes a mother who has little time for self-indulgence and who forsakes her own appearance. In “In the Park”, “Her clothes are out of date”. Likewise, the mother in “Suburban Sonnet”, “She practices fugue”, though for no real purpose: “it can matter/to no one now if she plays well or not”.
Both mothers struggle alone with the drudgery of the children and “In the Park”, the mother’s regretful tone and her sarcasm reveal her resentment and her feeling that she has been abandoned all too casually by a cavalier partner: “It’s so sweet/to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive”. Such pleasure is juxtaposed with the feelings of anger, loss and drudgery.
The poet uses enjambment between the first and second stanzas to reflect upon a significant moment and a hasty relationship that has irrevocably changed her life “Someone she loved once passed by– too late/to feign indifference to that casual nod”. The sarcasm evident in the dialogue, “Time holds great surprises”, focuses on their casual and inane banter which also captures her gnawing sense of resentment. The “flickering light” symbolises the waning of their romantic and shared matrimonial ties as the woman responds to his “departing smile” and tends to her “youngest child” – alone.
Likewise, in the “Suburban Sonnet”, “a pot boils over” symbolising the heated and chaotic kitchen, which in turn reflects the mother’s tension as she becomes overwhelmed by urgent domestic chores. Harwood suggests that there is nothing naturally joyful about tending to the mundane chores, “as she scours the crusty milk”. This mother also struggles to perform the multiplicity of tasks demanded of her: “A pot / boils over. As she rushes to the stove / too late”.
The devouring nature of children:
In her anti-romantic vein, children are not stereotypically angelic and innocent, either. They can be a source of frustration and despair. They “chatter then scream and fight”. In the Park, they “whine and bicker”, and “tug at her skirt”. Despairingly, the mother comments, “they have eaten me alive”. There is a sense that children devour the mother’s energy. She, who “once played for Rubinstein” is now trapped, by the domestic chores, and feels a rising sense of anxiety because of the waste of her creative talents and dreams.
Likewise, the symbolism of the “sprung mousetrap” around which the children “caper” reinforces the mother’s sense of entrapment. In this regard, the domestic setting suffocates rather than liberates the mother’s creativity.
Harwood suggests that women’s creative and separate identities are subsumed by their social role. The devouring nature of children also reflects the devouring nature of the lion who experiences the “tender woman” as pure lust. The mother of “The Twins” (Class of 1927), dies during “accouchement”, and the poet quotes the neighbours who agree that “a mercy the child went with her”.
The fertile mother and childbirth
Childbirth is often a dangerous thing in Harwood’s poems and the girls in “The Twins” suffer from the loss of their mother and the increasingly unpredictable and undependable father. The reference to “accouchement” instead of labour dignifies the mother’s incredible sacrifice. The final stanza praises the ‘smiling woman” “winged like an angel” who “welcomes” two children home. The emotional memories of the “smiling” angel-like mother seek to protect and reassure the vulnerable children who do not find assistance with the distant God, “our father which art in heaven”.
Mother: Some domestic happiness
Despite her sufferings, there are glimpses of the mother’s bliss/joy in Harwood’s poetry, especially in the endearing/treasured images of her own family unit. The fact that the mother, the main protagonist in “Mother who gave me life” died folding a towel, provides the poet with eternal memories that are not only rich in symbolism but that enable the speaker to find a sense of constancy and comfort in routine domestic chores.
The Mother in “Autumn” presents as a soothing figure who “talks” with the poet Vincent Buckley when “the house is quiet”. The sense of peace descends upon a pleasantly vibrant domestic setting with children clamouring for the attention of the revered younger poet, in the “haze of your academic glory”. Meanwhile the poet-mother, explains how, “I get the dinner, find pencils,/check schoolbags, rehearse the homework, I Mother …”.
In this celebration of the mother’s life, there is a contrast between the darkness that descends upon the “calling from outside” and the constancy of the memories associated with the joys of motherhood and domesticity. The “fabric of marvels” “folded/down to a little space” and the mother who was “still good to the last” poignantly capture the mother’s warmth and sensitivity and provide the poet with endearing memories.
The signs of domesticity become a celebration of the mother’s warmth and the sense of home and place that were cherished by the daughter. Like the previous image of the “king”, these images also symbolize the transience of the mother’s life, but of one who brings to the home a permanent sense of warmth, light, purpose, joy and hope. These emotions will live on in the daughter’s memories. Contrastingly, the mother’s death, sadly, ushers in a period of darkness. “Darkness falls on my father’s house”.
Mother; care and compassion
In the “Secret Life of Frogs”, Mr Gabriel Fur brings a forbidden frog onto the hearth. The frog becomes a symbol of slain Frenchmen during the Great War. If the frog and the masculine Mr Gabriel Fur represent the exploitation of power, the feminine is associated with fertility and nurture. These qualities are highlighted in the moral decision to let the frog live, in contrast with mice. The possessive and caring influence of the feminine is evident in the desire to save and nurture the frog. The father is the “humble stretcher-bearer” which also shows the nurturing qualities of men at war. Words with soft and nurturing qualities are used to describe the frog’s fate at the hands of the mother. Their “vulnerable bellies” are “cuddled” in “hands that would not do them wrong”- suggests a childlike innocence
The mother is devoured
Although marriage and motherhood can offer “great joy”, Harwood explores the idea that marriage, especially in the patriarchal social context of the 1960s, also leads to a loss of self for many women. Written in the traditional form of love poetry, a sonnet, the iambic pentametre verse of ‘The Lion’s Bride’ questions the nature of an equal union of “soul to soul”. Written from the perspective of the savage anthropomorphised groom as a lion, whose lust for the “tender woman” devours her, the poem functions as an extended metaphor for the destructive nature of sexual relationships. As Harwood explores the desire of the lustful male, the images of feasting and sensuality blur: “I ripped the veil … engorged the painted lips” connotes the devouring of a woman’s identity by the beast-like male. This loss is further reinforced by Harwood’s use of the language of possession with “my love…..my bride”, which indicates ownership. Whilst the male consumes and indulges his passion, he is unaware of the destructive consequences of his love. He implores her, to “come soon my love, my bride, and share this meal”. This image of the devouring nature of relationships also recalls the mother’s frustration in “In the Park”: “they have eaten me alive”. (and Suburban Sonnet)
The creative role of the female
‘Prize giving’ prioritises passion over reason and the beauty of the female-titian youth over the pompous staid professor. As the embodiment of youth and playfulness, the young musician with titian hair is exceptional and represents an energy that cannot be harnessed. If the audience bows unanimously in prayer, and most of the women are fawning over this professor, this girl with “a copper-net of hair” sits audaciously in the front, mocking his Rodin-like pose.
In contrast to Professor Eisenbart, the vibrant girl (“with a copper net of hair”) represents the lustrous side of femininity and suggests that because of its unpredictability and spontaneity it has the power to unsettle and disarm. Harwood emphasizes the aura of the girl “with titian hair”, and her intrusion into the professor’s thoughts when she parathentically states that her seating beneath the light is “no accident .. he felt sure”.
The poet creates a formal distance between Professor Eisenbart and his audience through the formal title of his academic rank, the foreign sound of his name and his association with Rodin’s thinker. Although he embodies reason and wisdom, the Professor’s character remains aloof, stiff and pompous, which reinforces his status and authority. He appears unapproachable —at first he ‘rudely declined’; however he is flattered by the persistence of the Headmistress and he condescends to ‘grace their humble platform’. Harwood satirises his pomposity, as well as the school’s desperation to acquire such a distinguished guest. She captures the inane delight and obsequiousness of the female company and the insect imagery suggests an element of scatterbrained flight.
The ability of the feminine to unsettle and its light-hearted nature are revealed when the girl, who is described as “grinning”, confidently mocks his pose and disturbs the professor’s self assurance. The final sentence in the stanza, which announces how her hand is “bent under her chin in mockery of his own” is the only one that does not consist of enjambement. The girl’s derision forces him out of his indifference. He took/ Her hand and felt its voltage fling his hold/ From his calm age and power. He becomes the “sage fool” trapped by her creativity and the “fullness of all passion”.
The spiritual and the fertile mother
If Harwood is critical of the distant, formulaic and omnipotent, “Father in Heaven, she increasingly personalises the familiar angelic mother.
In “The Twins”, the twins appear rejected by the “father which art in heaven”, and dream of the “smiling woman” “winged like an angel” who would welcome the “two children home from school”.
Whilst the memories resist the long shadow cast by time, there is also a sense in “The Twins” that the idyllic memory of an angelic mother helps the “telepathic” twins withstand grief and suffering. The mother died during a difficult “accouchement”, leading to a life of despair, softened only by the idealised and spiritual memory of a “smiling woman winged like an angel” who “welcomes two children home from school”. In this sense, too, the poet in Violet remembers how, “into my father’s house we went, young parents and their restless child/to light the lamp and the wood stove”, which also has biblical overtones of a spiritual and all-embracing Father.
This phrase echoes the old testament, “my father’s house has many rooms” and gives a feeling of solace and comfort as well as personal, long-lasting intimacy which remain constant in memories despite the passing of time. Likewise, the mother’s long “goldbrown hair” which falls to her waist recalls Mary Magdalene’s and the joys of a benevolent Christian family. The family rituals such as lighting the lamp over the “wooden stove” that soothes the child’s restless spirit, help prepare her for “innocent sleep”. One implication of this, is that Christian faith brings about innocence, but sentimentally, its joy is reserved for those who offer personal touches of kindness. Note also, the subliminal reference to the shining “distant suburbs” with their “great simplicities” that beckons the ancient father in “Nightfall”.
The spiritual and the fertile mother
It is only upon a second reading of the “Mother who Gave Me Life”, that the personal tribute becomes apparent as the poet skilfully blends the personal and the universal. Mother is presented as the source of wisdom and of life’s mysteries. She harbours the secret of life. The daughter is aware that she cannot penetrate these secrets, “forgive me the wisdom I would not learn from you”. Rather she is the abstract source of secrets. The personal becomes a universal tribute to the mother as life-giver, as the poet focuses on the mother’s fertility and nurturing qualities in the cycle of life.
From a universal perspective, the images of the linen in “Mother Who Gave Me Life”, symbolize the mother’s relationship with her daughter and connect them both with the physical world in an inter-generational cycle that celebrates the mysteries and marvels of birth. The reference to the “fabric of marvels folded down to a little space” captures the intricacies of the mother’s life, and the fact that, like all life in the universe, it becomes smaller and smaller until life ceases to exist. This marvel connects the mother with all maternal figures, “your mother, and hers and beyond”.
As time extends “backward” the mother’s mortality is endowed with a sense of permanence and continuity, fusing with primordial images of the “monkey bosom” and the “guileless milk of the word”.
The religious reference to Genesis and John (1:1) connects the mother with God’s universal breath. In other words, the mother is presented as a personal representation of the biblical “milk of the word” implying that the female is to be exalted and praised because of her natural power. Harwood believes that this personal connection with the source of life is more meaningful to her than a remote Father (in heaven).
Fertility, the mother and the natural world
Such fertility also connects the feminine with the natural world. The title of the poem, “Violets”, is associated with both life and death as part of nature. Likewise, in “Autumn”, the fertile world that evolved with the primates and the “fruit trees” becomes a source of sweetness, fused with the salty pain of tears, “what gave us our salty rapture then at a cry from the stage”. The poet deftly refers to the metaphoric sense of “nature playing at theatre”.
The violets feature as “frail melancholy flowers” which are symbolic of the child’s frail early memories. They are picked from “ashes”, symbolizing death and “loam” which ambiguously points towards fertility and renewal. The narrator “kneel(s) to pick” the violets which shows her self-abasement and acceptance and awareness of death. Likewise the father is “bending” to inhale the violets.
Whilst nature plays at “theatre”, it also has a “moral office” as the brilliantly adorned autumn trees, in their full “ripeness”, are “blown away, away” and soon remind one of the death of the natural world. The “dry leaves” after a time are “gilded with death”.
Childhood
Many poems in Harwood’s collection focus on the brutality associated with death which, she suggests is innate. As a result, childhood is not just an idyllic place of innocence, but a place that already reflects the brutality of the adult world.
Childhood is a time of brutality : grief, regret, guilt, shame
In “Barn Owl”, the child persona rebels against the father (challenges the father’s wisdom) and sets out to kill the barn owl. This act of defiance is presented a “coming of age” poem in which the child’s encounter with the brutality of death coincides with her loss of innocence. (her own capacity for evil) and its consequences which lead to confusing and conflicting emotions.
In this case, death is a cruel act that is inflicted upon the unsuspecting own by a child with a gun, which gives her disproportionate power and which marks her transition her from innocence to experience. From the moment that her “first shot struck”, the child-persona becomes mesmorised by the suffering that she has inflicted. This is reinforced when she sees “the wrecked thing that could / not bear the light nor hide / hobbled in its own blood.” The child narrator grieves with her father as she leaned her “head upon [her] father’s arm and wept” after recognising the extent of the horror that she has unleashed.
The “Barn Owl” depicts the child’s journey from innocence and ignorance to awareness and the knowledge of one’s own cruelty. The owl becomes a symbolic reminder of one’s capacity to inflict harm on the natural world.
In this sense, death becomes a consequence of man’s cruelty and abuse of power. Even in the child’s hand, the gun wreaks havoc.
The young narrator is depicted as “a horny fiend”, which contrasts with the father’s dreamlike vision of an angelic child. The child disobediently ‘crept out” with the gun. Fiendlike, the gun turns the girl into someone who has unreasonable and disproportionate power over life and death. Aware of her premeditated act, she focuses on “my prize” and is aware of her role of “master of life and death”. Describing herself as a “wisp-haired judge”, could be a reference to both her frail and weak-looking demeanour or the wispy hair could suggest she has straw remnants because of the hay in the barn. She is about to punish “beak and claw”.
In “Barn Owl”, the child comes to terms with the harsh consequences of the gun, through the reflective symbolism of the owl’s eyes.
Typically a symbol of insight and awareness, in this case, the owl’s “daylight riddled eyes” refer to its ability to see in the darkness. After it is shot it “blindly” hobbled closer as a challenge to the narrator whose cruel shot reinforces the owl’s blindness.
And yet, the owl’s “eyes that did not see” become a marker of knowledge as the narrator is forced to recognise in this blindness the extent of her own cruelty. The eyes reflect to the once innocent narrator, the “obscene” and painful nature of an untimely death.
Likewise, in “Class 1927”, the doctor’s son is depicted as the “vivisector” who also makes a spectacle of the cruel dissection of animals. The student narrator witnesses once again a child exercising extreme power and brutality.
Awareness; guilt and betrayal
But if poem’s such as Barn Own focus on the narrator’s physical cruelty, this poem highlights psychological and emotional cruelty. Deep down, the poet feels a sense of shame that she has betrayed Ella’s trust, who very personally revealed to the poet the poverty of her own existence.
In “Spelling Prize”, Harwood reflects on the spelling competitions at school between her and Ella, and feels contrite and a sense of shame that she won the “coveted, worthless prize”. The poet uses oxymoronic adjectives, such as “worthless” and “coveted”, to highlight the poet’s disappointment and sense of personal betrayal upon her victory. To win the prize, she instinctively puts her hand up, “[Her] innocent hand flew up” to spell “MYSTIC” and she triumphs over Ella, her main rival. The poet uses enjambment between the last three stanzas to focus on the painful memories that still haunt her after sixty years. She questions as to “why now, does memory brood on Sir’s return, and the moment/when he put down his cane”.
As a child, Harwood suffered from peer pressure, which is evident when the girls started hissing, “Give Ella a chance. Let her win.” The girls later label her a “Skite” and a “Showoff”. Evidently, the poet’s need to impress and outshine the other girls triumphs.
The alliterative phrase referring to the hurt from Ella’s “red-rimmed eyes” highlights her personal pain. Significantly, the poet also uses the description of “skite” to refer to the “doctor’s son, a clever skite” who found “inexpressible delight in cruelty”. In this sense, the poet also feels that she has been cruel to Ella, but contrastingly, does not delight in her actions.
Childhood is often the source of hardship and pain
If the farmer betrays the trust of the gentle and loving calf, whose eyes watch “the hand that fed”, the poet is also aware of the poverty of Ella’s life which foreshadows the poet’s own sense of treachery. Her sparse room is described, wherein “ nobody owed a corner, a space they might call their own.” Ella shows her the toys – the ‘two old dolls in showbox” –
Likewise, in “The Twins”, Harwood also regrets the opportunity to act generously towards the twins. She reveals the difficulty at home faced by the twins, after their mother’s death from “accouchement”. The father struggles with his grief which compounds the twins’ trauma and influences their emotional development. He refuses the help offered by the narrator’s family member: “we manage, we don’t need help.”
Harwood contrasts the life of the twins with the poet’s, who has a more privileged lifestyle by comparison. She has “shoes, clean handkerchiefs, ribbons, a toothbrush.” She confesses her guilt and a sense of regret is evident when she “scuttled away” so she “should not have to share [her] Saturday sweets.”
The tone of the poem changes (indicated by the indentation in the stanza format) as the older narrator, ashamed and regretful, asks a ‘Good Angel’ to have “that morning again” so that she is able to share her sweets. She uses prayer as an empathetic form for wishing the twins an “ending” different from the one they had, or for them to be held in their innocent childhood dream of the perfect family which they drew: “a four square house where a smiling woman winged like an angel welcomes two children home from school”
The twins are forced to be mostly self sufficient after their mother’s death, through the lack of support offered by their father and their ingrained family pride. Their proud father refuses the offer of help by the ? narrator’s grandmother and states, “we manage. we don’t need help”,. The twins similarly refuse the sweets from the narrator’s mother, saying “no thank you, we don’t like lollies”
The story of the twins sleeping in the bed on Fridays, “barred in from their father’s rage as he drank his dead wife back to his house” indicates that others pity the twins and realise the difficulty of their home life.
Awareness and growth: the other reflects the child’s brutality
In “Barn Owl” (Father and child), the daughter is shocked by the ugliness of death. She is a “lonely child who believed death clean/ and final, not this obscene / bundle of stuff”. The use of enjambment occurs particularly across stanzas four, five and six, to describe the death of the owl. This creates a sense of urgency as we come to grips with the fast approaching ending of life and the child’s horror.
The child and spiritual guidance
The father helps the child deal with her sense of pain. As a source of wisdom and authority, the father, adopting a biblical tone, commands the young child to, “end what you have begun”. This direct quote, sees the father placing in the hands of the child, the gun which has inflicted such obscenity upon the natural world. Having defied authority, the child now seeks comfort in one who symbolises a compassionate and wise voice. This firm and unambiguous advice, which challenges the child’s innocence and addresses the changed nature of their relationship, is set against the child’s defiance and her gratuitous act of violence undertaken by the child.
The gruesome nature of death is also captured in other poems and takes on a more sinister tone. In “Slate” (Class of 1927), the poet depicts the boys’ cruelty towards nature, which sets the brutality of the boys apart from the natural act of dying. The doctor’s son, “found inexpressible delight in cruelty” when he ‘dissected lizards and frogs’. These brutal images suggest that even the children’s capacity for evil sets them apart from the nature and contradicts stereotypical images of innocence. (p 176)
Similarly, images of brutality connected with death are also evident in “Secret Life of Frogs” whereby the boys “blew them (frogs) up and spied them”. This poem is an expression of Harwood’s concerns regarding the innate desire of humans to subject others, particularly defenceless creatures, to appalling cruelty. The poet believes that the natural brutality of children and the way which they express it stems from childhood when the ‘big boys’ ‘spiked’ the harmless frogs in the school yard. This imagery is connected with the images of stretcher-bearers of the Great War, to suggest that similar brutality is at play on a vast and inhuman scale in the adult world.
The bonehead: an antidote to cruelty
Childhood and changing identities
Likewise in The Violets, the child-adult persona expresses her gratitude towards her parents, through the power of memory. The violets are symbolically depicted as “frail melancholy flowers” which are picked from “ashes” and “loam”. The indentation between stanza one and two marks a shift in time, whereby the narrator moves from the present to the past tense and recalls her memories of childhood. The irretrievable and permanent loss of her parents is juxtaposed with the ability of memory to sustain their life, which gives the poet a sense of comfort. Adopting a solicitous tone, she remembers the unforgettable times. “…” The ever-present power of memory is symbolized by the “lamp-lit presences” which focuses on the joy in times of sadness and endows them with a golden glow. (overlapping with the idyllilc/spiritual)
As her parents mature and approach death, the child must rethink her relationships, her identity, and her place the world. The death of the parents leads to an altered sense of identity.
Harwood depicts the reversal in the parent-child relationship owing to the inevitable passing of time as the child often takes over the parenting role of aging parents and becomes a guide.
The adult-child becomes full of mixed emotions such as love, gratitude, regret and loss.
In “Father and Child’, “Nightfall” focuses on the transience of life with the father’s imminent death. This solemn reflection of the past creates a sense of sadness as the daughter/narrator reminisces about the inevitability of her father’s death. The father seems to be making an effort to accompany the child on one of his last walks as he continues to nurture the child’s delight in nature. “Eighty years old, you take this late work for my sake”.
As the father approaches 80 years old, and as the daughter/narrator increasingly sees him as the “old king” then he seems to take on the universal aspect of the wise “kingmaker”. His “passionate face is grown/ to ancient innocence” which shows the physical change in the father because of the passing of time; he has less passion and more wisdom, as befits the image of the king.
In “Nightfall”, the father takes on a quiet dignity and authority as his “marvellous journey” approaches death. Flushed with admiration and love, the narrator regrets the inevitable passing of time, with the rhetorical question, “who can be what you were”, which suggests the impossibility of recapturing lost time, and the regret that the father is now “stick-thin”. Her command, “let us walk for this hour/ as if death had no power” shows the narrator’s desire to withstand the inevitable process of death, which is impossible and cherish his last moments.
As the child grapples with the loss of parents, the more she clings to memories. As the parents become immortalised, and as the King passes into the twilight zone, so too do the parents take on a more spiritual role. The father becomes the Kingmaker, and the parents in the Violets occupy the spiritual home. The twins, coping with the loss of the mother, cling to her angelic” and smiling visage. (The parents are changing and becoming less physically substantial.)
Childhood: Wisdom and awareness
The daughter also learns through her father’s aging process that life can still be celebrated and appreciated through a child’s eyes which gives the impression of cyclical time: “You keep a child’s delight for ever/in birds, flowers, shivery grass’.
The passing of a life ushers in a sense of regret. Irrespective of the poet’s possible blindness or reluctance to learn, there is always a sense that a parent’s death leads to the loss of possibilities and the loss of wisdom. (“Forgive me the wisdom I would not learn from you”). The poet also regrets the fact that the mother died before the second sighting of Halley’s Comet which places the mother in a specific time and place. Specifically, she remembers their last meeting during when “I closed the ward door of heavy glass between us” which becomes an ominous sign of closure. The fact that the mother “died folding a towel” reflects her domestic side as well as her warmth and her joy in life. The mother’s death ushers in a period of darkness. (“Darkness falls on my father’s house”). Harwood employs a varied rhyming structure, and as the poem continues, we see a shift from an exterior perspective to an interior and personal perspective of reflection and celebration of her mother’s life. ( Universal)
The Kingmaker: naming and memories (Nightfall)
Despite the eventual passing, the poet steadfastly and poignantly, clings to a sense of permanence achieved through memories and naming. In Nightfall, the second person pronoun, “You” refers to a personal relationship with the father as well as to the “kingmaker” and his legacy. Things that are named become permanent as the father and daughter walk through the bush. “Things truly named can never vanish from earth”, just as a child’s delight remains true to spirit.
The poet suggests that life can never be completely erased; for the poet who bears witness to the father’s life a sense of beauty forever remains. Here, there is an intertextual reference to John Keat’s famous poem, Endymion, when he states “a thing of beauty is a joy forever / Its loveliness increases; it will never / pass into nothingness.”
The italicised question, “Be your tears wet?” is a personal reference to the father as he longingly walks with the daughter aware of the end of time. This reference gives us a sense that the father, like King Lear (IV/vii) is blind as the boundaries of past and present, light and dark, merge and his ‘night and day are one’. The poignancy of the father’s wet tears and the final reference to the “sorrow” that “no tears can mend” leave readers with an ambiguous feeling of both deep joy and deep sorrow.
Likewise in “Autumn”, the poetic greatness of Vincent Buckley means, according to Harwood, that he will enjoy longevity. “It’s mortals who die”. Harwood’s poignant elegy to her idol and “Irish Darling”, (“I was charmed by your presence in the world to distraction”) reflects upon the devastating memories of one who dies a premature death and who is “sadder than I have ever been”. Thirty years has past, and Harwood depicts his death as part of the natural stage of life. However, as an “immortal”, this poet will never die, as the “day is far spent”.
The child remembers harsh authority
In poems such as “Religious Instruction”, the poet presents a harsh and unforgiving depiction of religious masters and the clergy. Fear dominates the poet’s reactions as she remembers sitting in her religious instruction classes at school. Religious instruction is taught, ‘once a week’, but it divides the students from each other and the master imposes his harsh and stern authority over the children which are particularly fearful in his presence. He delights in traumatizing the children with the concept of “original sin” which hangs over them in a mark of terrible shame.
In this regard, Harwood sets up an antithesis between divisions of “faith”, not ‘age” and highlights the religious categories that divided each student from one another.
“Sir” is depicted as harsh, who singles out the poet because she is writing verses about “Old Swivelneck”. Sir is set up for ridicule in the image of the clergy who is “beaked like a sparrowhawk” and the alliterative phrase “clawed at his collar”. Learning religion becomes a fearful experience as students become distracted because of the boredom. The poet is “singled” out for harsh discipline /punishment and the enjambment between stanzas 5 and 6 reinforce the stern headmaster, “or Sir”, who makes watches over the young child who “stood in disgrace”.
Set against the harsh depiction of “Sir”, is the Jewish boy, Micah who does not fit the neat categories, and who is depicted as a “handsome”, “dark angel”.
Antidotes to cruelty
Micah, like Bonehead, provides a personal image of charity, kindness and generosity of spirit, whose quiet voice quotes the scriptures “I am ready to forgive” in a much more convincing and gentle manner.
Parents and the spiritual
As the poet reflects upon her parents’ legacy and the moments that she cherishes, she is able to immortalise their memories. This process helps the poet deal with loss as she thinks about the child’s gratitude and her debt to her parents. She reflects upon their wisdom and the love for life and nature that they instilled in the curious child. The parents merge with spiritual and religious figures because of the universal love of the family.
For the child become adult, the spiritualised memories of the parents help to deal with loss and sadness. In this regard, the personalised and idolised version of the Father (and Mother) often replace the distant and informal “Our Father” in heaven.
In “Barn Owl”, the father appears as the source of wisdom and authority, who takes on universal biblical proportions as he guides the child during her darkest hour. Adopting a biblical tone, he commands the young child to, ‘end what you have begun”. This direct quote sees the father placing in the hands of the child, the gun which has inflicted such obscenity upon the natural world. Having defied authority, the child now seeks comfort in one who symbolises a compassionate and wise voice. This firm and unambiguous advice, which challenges the child’s innocence and addresses the changed nature of their relationship, is set against the child’s defiance and her gratuitous act of violence.
As the speaker thinks about the transience of life and the onset of death, she realizes that death cannot extinguish memory. The dead parents occur as “lamp lit presences”…. the stone curlew’s from Kedron Brook. The poem contains a sentimental reference to family life as the poet recalls the lamplit .. wood stove. The loving parents dote on the “restless child” in a state of spiritual harmony.
The violets, which symbolise the continuity of the past and future also symbolise the narrator’s acceptance and knowledge of death. As a child, the narrator “would not hold/their sweetness, or be comforted” by the “spring violets”. Conversely, the mature narrator “pick[s]” the violets as its scent “drifts in air”. This contrast symbolises the narrator’s mature understanding and acceptance of the looming presence of death as inevitable.
Their memories become spiritual and replace a distant relationship with “Our Father”.
The spiritual as personal
From a spiritual perspective, Harwood is critical of the image of an omnipotent and caring “Father in Heaven”, who “In Twins”, robs the sad grief-stricken but telepathic twins of a loving and compassionate home. The mother’s premature death (through “accouchement”, not “labour”), leads to a dysfunctional family life. The narrator wishes they could be innocently protected from the harsh world, but they come to “grief” and are unable to rejoice in their vision of innocence as drawn on the “backs of their slate”.
The intertextual reference to the prayer, “Our father which art in heaven”, turns into a sad reflection of “their work being done”. This formulaic, distant and isolating God, frustrates their impossible, but innocent dream of a “smiling woman” “winged like an angel” who would welcome the “two children home from school”. If, as the poet suggests, innocence escapes the yearning twins, such a picture of innocence is reserved for the poet-narrator, while reminiscing about the beauty of the natural world, with its violets drifting in the air as dusk melts like ice-cream.
As the child grapples with the loss of parents, the more she clings to memories. As the parents become immortalised, and as the King passes into the twilight zone, so too do the parents take on a more spiritual role. The father becomes the Kingmaker, and the parents in the Violets occupy the spiritual home. The twins, coping with the loss of the mother, cling to her angelic” and smiling visage. (The parents are changing and becoming less physically substantial.)
Memories and the passing of time
In “Autumn”, nature is presented as a “natural stage” which kindles the bitter-sweet moments and memories in life. “Some say that primates evolved/concurrently with fruit trees” and hence “our taste for sweetness” that exists with the salty “rapture then at a cry from the stage”. The poet is particularly affected by the sad passing of her poet-friend-idol, Vincent Buckley, whom she believes will live on as an “immortal”.
Memories help us overcome moments of sadness and help us deal with loss. If life is transient and death is inevitable, then there is a sense that the memories are permanent, at least for the child – also a time of independence .
The daughter in “Nightfall” remembers the father’s legacy particularly in the things that he named. “Things truly named can never vanish…”
In many of Gwen Harwood’s poems, we see a close focus on the transience of life and what it is to be human. The poet explores the nature of growing up and the memories that are acquired through life that also reflect one’s debts to parents and role models.
Memories created are an integral part in being able to understand the essence of life and death. In “The Violets”, Harwood follows a prose-like structure with the use of enjambment throughout the piece to allow fluidity, representing the poet’s continuous train of thought. The poem begins with reoccurring images of “cold[ness]” and “dusk”. This romantic link to the dark natural setting and “ambiguous sky” creates a sombre tone, foreshadowing the presence of death in the future.
In Violets, the “frail melancholy flowers” (violets) represents the fragile memories of childhood that are among “ashes” and “loam”, and the act of “pick[ing]” the flowers suggest the narrator’s awareness of demise and passing.
If life is transient and death is inevitable, then there is a sense that the memories are permanent, at least for the child – also a time of independence . Harwood suggests memories allow a sense of solace and hope to overcome the melancholy of inevitable death in which the memories are symbolically depicted as “lamplit presences” I Violets . “Years cannot move/nor death’s disorienting scale/distort those lamplit presences” gives a sense that the speaker refuses to allow memories to be dimmed or distorted by the onset of time. The violets, which symbolises the continuity of the past and future also symbolises the narrator’s acceptance
Likewise in “Autumn”, the poetic greatness of Vincent Buckley means, according to Harwood, that he will enjoy longevity. “It’s mortals who die”. Harwood’s poignant elegy to her idol and “Irish Darling”, (“I was charmed by your presence in the world to distraction”) reflects upon the devastating memories of one who dies a premature death and who is “sadder than I have ever been”. Thirty years has past, and Harwood depicts his death as part of the natural stage of life. However, as an “immortal”, this poet will never die, as the “day is far spent”.
Memories, once again, help the speaker deal with loss.
Violets:
The light and vibrant images shine a “lamp” on cherished memories, a spark of life, which allows the speaker to move past the opposing darkness and celebrate the memory of a full life, despite its inevitable end. Likewise, memories of family life are symbolically depicted as “lamplit presences” in “Violets”. Such memories, Harwood suggests, provide a sense of solace and hope as the poet once again deals with the melancholic inevitability of death. “Years cannot move/nor death’s disorienting scale/distort those lamplit presences” which suggests that the speaker refuses to allow memories to be dimmed or distorted by the onset of time. The symbolism of the lamp poignantly reinforces the dim, but ever-present glow of memories. In this poem, the voice and tone begin with the memory of the child who “[runs] to find [her] mother” and shifts, to the second stanza, with an indentation that signifies a transition to a calmer and more reflective outlook on life.
As the poet previously suggested in “Nightfall”, once named, these memories continue to take on a life of their own despite the sense of sense of sadness as a mother’s life comes to an end. The light and vibrant images shine a “lamp” on cherished memories, a spark of life which allows the speaker to move past the opposing darkness and celebrate the memory of a full life. The poignant tone and the freshness of the mother dominate the poet’s memories which suggest that she was “still good to the last”. The signs of domesticity become a celebration of the mother’s warmth and the sense of home and place that were cherished by the daughter. Like the previous image of the “king”, these images also symbolize the transience of the mother’s life, but of one who brings to the home a permanent sense of warmth, light, purpose, joy and hope. These emotions will live on in the daughter’s memories. Contrastingly, the mother’s death, sadly, ushers in a period of darkness. “Darkness falls on my father’s house”.
The importance of memory as it seeks to give a sense of permanence to death is also explored in ‘The Violets’ as Harwood suggests memories and intuitive thinking allows a sense of solace and hope that overcome the melancholy of inevitable death. The memories are symbolically depicted as “lamp lit presences”. “Years cannot move/nor death’s disorienting scale/distort those lamplit presences” which gives a sense that the speaker refuses to allow memories to be dimmed or distorted by the onset of time. The sunset images are symbolic of the approach of death ‘melting west striped like ice-cream’. A sense of continuity and forward movement in life is also evoked; “the thing that I could not grasp or name/that, while I slept, had stolen from me/those hours of unreturning light’. The shift in tone to a calmer and more reflective tone in stanza two suggests the speaker has reached a higher form of knowledge through maturity and aging.
The boundaries of life and death begin to blur as the “blurring darkness” begins to take over from the “morning”. A sombre tone is created through the foreshadowing of a looming death, and reoccurring images of darkness and “dusk”. Readers are made to feel unsettled as alliteration is used in the final stanza, depicting this darkness as “deaths disorienting scale”. These staccato sounds create a sense of the speakers’ bitterness towards death as she is unable to control this movement. A connection to “Nights and Dreams” is evident as thoughts become blurred through age. As the poet states, “years cannot move”, time cannot be reversed and life moves rapidly like the surrounding, restless environment. The indented lines reinforce the permanence of memories that offset the passing of time as she spells out the “lamplit presences” that will prevail. A sense of rejuvenation and rebirth is evident in the final stanza as the “scent of violets that drift in the air” leaves readers with a sense of hope despite the bleakness of death.
A thematic study of Gwen Harwood (selective poems): Dr Jennifer Minter, English Works Notes.
Please also see our workbook: Arguments and Persuasive Language
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