Literary Career
Gwen Harwood had written poetry for many years, and her first poem was published in Meanjin in 1944, but her work did not start appearing regularly in journals and books until the 1960s. Her first book of poems, titled Poems, was published in 1963, followed in 1968 by Poems Volume II. Other books include The Lion's Bride (1981), Bone Scan (1988), and The Present Tense (1995). There are also several versions of a Selected Poems, including one from Penguin in 2001.
Harwood used a range of pseudonyms in her early work, such as Walter Lehmann, W.W. Hagendoor (an anagram of her name), Francis Geyer, Timothy (TF) Kline, Miriam Stone, and Alan Carvosso.
She also wrote libretti for composers such as Larry Sitsky, James Penberthy, Don Kay and Ian Cugley.
She corresponded over the years with several poet friends, including Vincent Buckley, A. D. Hope, Vivian Smith, and Norman Talbot, and served as President of the Tasmanian Branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.
Her poetry has been used by many students who are completing the Higher School Certificate (HSC) in New South Wales, Australia, by Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) students in Victoria, Australia, and by Western Australian Certificate of Education (WACE) students in Western Australia, Australia.
Read more about this topic: Gwen Harwood
Famous quotes containing the words literary and/or career:
“There is a difference between dramatizing your sensibility and your personality. The literary works which we think of as classics did the former. Much modern writing does the latter, and so has an affinity with, say, night-club acts in all their shoddy immediacy.”
—Paul Horgan (b. 1904)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)