Gwen Harwood

Gwen Harwood ( born June 8, 1920 in Taringa, Queensland; † 9 December 1995, born Gwendoline Nessie Foster) was an Australian poet and librettist. She grew up in Queensland and moved to her marriage to William Harwood to Tasmania.

Gwen Harwood is regarded as one of Australia's best poets; their works are studied in schools and university seminars regularly. She won numerous awards and prizes for poetry, including one for a collection of her early letters with the title Blessed City.

Her first poetry collection Poems was published in 1963, followed in 1968 by the second volume of Poems Volume II Further works are The Lion 's Bride (1981 ), Bone Scan ( 1988) and The Present Tense (1995). There are also several editions of Selected Poems, including a Penguin, 2001.

Harwood wrote their early works under various pseudonyms, some of which were revealed by literary detective work, for example, Walter Lehmann, WW Hagen Door, Francis Geyer, Timothy (TF) Kline, Miriam Stone and Alan Carvosso.

Recurring themes in Harwood's poetry are motherhood and the role of women, especially housewives. Music is another popular motif. Harwood was herself a trained pianist and organist. She also wrote poetry series with recurring characters; one of the most notorious was a professor Eisenbarth.