Burning Sappho single work   poetry   "The clothes are washed, the house is clean."
Issue Details: First known date: 1962... 1962 Burning Sappho
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Bulletin vol. 84 no. 4297 23 June 1962 Z614418 1962 periodical issue 1962 pg. 61
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Poems : Volume 2 Gwen Harwood , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1968 Z421056 1968 selected work poetry Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1968 pg. 29
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems : A New Edition Gwen Harwood , Gregory Kratzmann (editor), Victor Harbor : Halcyon Press , 2001 Z824188 2001 selected work poetry Details of the changes made in compiling this selection are outlined in the editor's introduction . Some poems not appearing in previous selections, as well as some unpublished poems, have been added; some poems previously appearing have been omitted. Textual emendations have been made to some works. Victor Harbor : Halcyon Press , 2001 pg. 57-58
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Mappings of the Plane : New Selected Poems Gwen Harwood , Gregory Kratzmann (editor), Chris Wallace-Crabbe (editor), Manchester : Fyfield Books , 2009 Z1635144 2009 selected work poetry

    'Gwen Harwood (1920-1995) is one of the best loved Australian poets of the twentieth century - and a fierce prankster, who published poems under half-a-dozen names and identities. By turns poignant, sensuous and mischievous, passionately musical, her poetry is marked by sure intelligence and a quicksilver, anti-authoritarian wit.

    'This new selection of her poetry from 1943 to her death makes the full range of the work accessible for the first time to poetry-lovers in the northern hemisphere. With an introduction by the leading Harwood critic Gregory Kratzmann and the Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe, who corresponded with Harwood, the selection includes hitherto little-known work along with poems which have become part of the central canon of Australian poetry.' (From the publisher's website.)

    Manchester : Fyfield Books , 2009
    pg. 27

Works about this Work

Burning Sappho : Gwen Harwood’s Incendiary Verse Ann-Marie Priest , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry 2024; (p. 167-182)

‘This chapter investigates Gwen Harwood’s subversion of gendered presumptions of authorship and style. After discussing her skilful redress of a male-dominant literary culture through hoax poetry, it considers how Harwood mobilised male personae to critique the cultural valuing of science and reason, explore sexual immorality, and address women’s experience of domesticity. It discusses how Harwood celebrated motherhood but was also one of the earliest writers to articulate its associated realities of exhaustion, loss of self, and feelings of despair and rage. The chapter argues that Harwood lays important groundwork for second-wave feminism while representing the ambiguities of care and connection. The chapter also engages with Harwood’s later exploration of death and the dynamic between sex and spirituality.’ 

Source: Abstract. 

“Creation’s Holiday” : On Silence and Monsters in Australian Poetry Jaya Savige , 2016 single work essay
— Appears in: Poetry , May 2016; (p. 169-184)
Suburban Sonnets : 'Mrs Harwood', Miriam Stone and Domestic Modernity Susan Sheridan , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 23 no. 2 2007; (p. 140-152)
She / I / You / It: Constructing Mothers and Motherhood in the Writing of Gwen Harwood Jennifer Strauss , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , March vol. 52 no. 1 1992; (p. 1-19)
`They Trust Me With the Axe': The Poetry of Gwen Harwood Elizabeth Lawson , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Poetry and Gender : Statements and Essays in Australian Women's Poetry and Poetics 1989; (p. 145-164)
Suburban Sonnets : 'Mrs Harwood', Miriam Stone and Domestic Modernity Susan Sheridan , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , October vol. 23 no. 2 2007; (p. 140-152)
She / I / You / It: Constructing Mothers and Motherhood in the Writing of Gwen Harwood Jennifer Strauss , 1992 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , March vol. 52 no. 1 1992; (p. 1-19)
`They Trust Me With the Axe': The Poetry of Gwen Harwood Elizabeth Lawson , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Poetry and Gender : Statements and Essays in Australian Women's Poetry and Poetics 1989; (p. 145-164)
“Creation’s Holiday” : On Silence and Monsters in Australian Poetry Jaya Savige , 2016 single work essay
— Appears in: Poetry , May 2016; (p. 169-184)
Burning Sappho : Gwen Harwood’s Incendiary Verse Ann-Marie Priest , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge Companion to Australian Poetry 2024; (p. 167-182)

‘This chapter investigates Gwen Harwood’s subversion of gendered presumptions of authorship and style. After discussing her skilful redress of a male-dominant literary culture through hoax poetry, it considers how Harwood mobilised male personae to critique the cultural valuing of science and reason, explore sexual immorality, and address women’s experience of domesticity. It discusses how Harwood celebrated motherhood but was also one of the earliest writers to articulate its associated realities of exhaustion, loss of self, and feelings of despair and rage. The chapter argues that Harwood lays important groundwork for second-wave feminism while representing the ambiguities of care and connection. The chapter also engages with Harwood’s later exploration of death and the dynamic between sex and spirituality.’ 

Source: Abstract. 

Last amended 4 Mar 2010 11:41:46
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