Cirrus@Austlit

'For its small population, Tasmania has produced, or attracted from elsewhere, a significant number of published poets, past and present. Not all have loved the place. In the case of Gwen Harwood, the island state was her prison, or at least that’s what she told her friends: ‘I HATE HOBART’, ‘When do we leave?’ and ‘Get me outa here’. ‘My only fear is that I’ll die before I get out of Tasmania,’ she wrote in her ‘Sapho cards’ to her friend Alison Hoddinott. It’s hard to judge tone on the page, but these comments don’t really sound ambivalent!'  ( Sarah Day Editorial introduction)