Analysis Of In The Park By Gwen Harwood

Gwen Harwood underlines the repression of women within society in Home of Mercy by expressing the restrictions that these girls face. The poem brings forward the way society view young females in the 1960s that act ‘indecently’ in societies view. Harwood is opposed to these views and believes that injustice has been done to these girls simply because they are not in a ‘traditional’ and ‘respectable’ marriage. Harwood uses descriptive language, religious imagery and irony to

Through the juxtaposition between past and present, organic imagery and a pronounced tone of both wonder and tranquility marking the language, Gwen Harwood's poetry delineates the nature of grief, fear, and memory as they personify human experience. The events described in "Father and Child", is an exploration of the existential and moral concerns of the poet. Both poems exemplify the ideals of maturity as compared to immaturity. 'The Violets' on the other hand explores the reconciliation of past memories. How one who cannot be comforted in the moment, can be comforted by memories instead. Fear is the main focus on Harwood's most psychological poem 'The Glass Jar'.

Opportunities for an individual to develop understanding of themselves stem from the experiences attained on their journey through life. The elements which contribute to life are explored throughout Gwen Harwood’s poems, At Mornington and Mother Who Gave Me Life, where the recollection of various events are presented as influences on the individual’s perception of the continuity of life. Both poems examine the connections between people and death in relation to personal connections with the persona’s father or mother. By encompassing aspects of human nature and life’s journey, Harwood addresses memories and relationships which contribute to one’s awareness of life.

In ‘I kneel to pick frail melancholy flowers among ashes and loam’ a tone of loneliness and sadness is established as the persona enters. Harwood describes the violets as ‘frail’ and ‘melancholy’, terms that arn’t usually associated with flowers. This is also explored in the juxtaposition of ‘ashes’ and ‘loam’. Ash is symbolic of death and decay which contradicts the ‘loam’, symbolic of life and birth. The persona’s dark and unpleasant perceptions reveal their uncertainty and state of mind. The present tense indicates the persona’s adulthood and their sense of longing and unsatisfaction conveyed through the nostalgic delivery of

Harwood uses “Daybreak:” as the opening into the poem, representing a new beginning, a new experience, which foreshadows the events to come. Negative descriptions such as, “horny fiend” are used by Harwood when the persona is describing herself taking her father’s gun at dawn, which is juxtaposed by the idea of the father at rest dreaming of an “obedient, angel-mind” child.

To begin with, the author’s implementation of short sentence fragments throughout the poem illustrates the exasperation and frustration bottled up in women in response to

‘Up the Wall’ by Bruce Dawe and ‘In the Park’ by Gwen Harwood both utilise the structure of the poem, dialogue and imagery to explore the idea of personal limitation and the loss of identity and love that accompanies maternal and domestic responsibility. Both poems have a third person persona where the use of “She” can indicate the mother’s universal sense of alienation and drudgery, which is further emphasised through the miserable and despairing tones of the poem. The incorporation of a generalised, impersonal pronoun adds to the evident struggle of separating her maternal identity from her identity as an individual. The poem ‘In the Park’ by Gwen Harwood is constructed in the form of a Petrarchan sonnet with an iambic pentameter and a rhyme

Gwen Harwood, a fellow Australian, scrutinises loss through motherhood and how one sacrifices and loses their identity in the poem “In the

Gwen Harwood’s poetry endures to engage readers through its poetic treatment of loss and consolation. Gwen Harwood’s seemingly ironic simultaneous examination of the personal and the universal is regarded as holding sufficient textual integrity that it has come to resonate with a broad audience and a number of critical perspectives. This is clearly evident within her poems ‘At Mornington’ and ‘A Valediction’, these specific texts have a main focus on motif that once innocence is lost it cannot be reclaimed, and it is only through appreciating the value of what we have lost that we can experience comfort and achieve growth.

The poem, Suburban Sonnet, idealizes the harsh realities of an Australian housewife, creating sympathetic tones to the readers. Gwen Harwood was born in Brisbane, Queensland in 1920. Harwood was raised in a family of strong women,

In the park written by Gwen Harwood, was originally written under a male pseudonym. The poem represents the idea of changing identity because of certain circumstances as well as challenging common ideas, paradigms and values & beliefs which is commonly held amongst mothers in today’s society.

and Femininity. The poem is mainly about motherhood in a way as previously discussed. She

In this stylistic analysis of the lost baby poem written by Lucille Clifton I will deal mainly with two aspects of stylistic: derivation and parallelism features present in the poem. However I will first give a general interpretation of the poem to link more easily the stylistic features with the meaning of the poem itself.

Distressed” Edna Vincent Millay is a popular American female poet in the twentieth century known for her works in relations to feminist issues. One of her poems “I, Being born a Woman and Distressed” or Sonnet XLI is a poem written in a feminist point of view about the conflict of being a woman. While some scholars believe that this poem was written about “women victimization” or how men are more liberated than women in every aspect of life, from personal to political (Fried 2), other scholars like Patricia A. Klemans believes that Millay’s poem is about the “sexual freedom” Millay possessed that were only “reserved” for men during her time and the rejection of societal norms in regards to women. Although these may be true, I posit that Millay’s

I read the book, “Voices in the Park”, by Anthony Browne for this assignment. I recreated a scene showing the children, Charles and Smudge, playing on monkey bars in the park. This setting is important to the text because it illustrates the free spirit of the youngsters. In fact, playing in the park symbolizes freedom from their parents. Charles and Smudge’s are able to run wild, escaping their parent’s negativity. The mediums I used when creating my artwork are magic markers, colored pencils, crayon, and pastels.