Mother Who Gave Me Life single work   poetry   "Mother who gave me life"
Issue Details: First known date: 1980... 1980 Mother Who Gave Me Life
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Alternative title: Lamplight
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Overland no. 82 December 1980 Z588585 1980 periodical issue 1980 pg. 32
    Note: With title : Lamplight
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Lion's Bride Gwen Harwood , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1981 Z418386 1981 selected work poetry Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1981 pg. 75-76
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse John Barnes (editor), Brian McFarlane (editor), Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 Z900285 1984 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 pg. 156
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Effects of Light : The Poetry of Tasmania Vivian Smith (editor), Margaret Scott (editor), Sandy Bay : Twelvetrees Publishing , 1985 Z171137 1985 anthology poetry Sandy Bay : Twelvetrees Publishing , 1985 pg. 79-80
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems [1985] Gwen Harwood , North Ryde : Angus and Robertson , 1985 Z443272 1985 selected work poetry A revision of Selected Poems, first published by Angus and Robertson in 1975. It incorporates poems from The Lion's Bride, 1981. North Ryde : Angus and Robertson , 1985 pg. 157-158
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years Leonie Kramer (editor), Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 Z1067493 1985 anthology poetry short story Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 pg. 586
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse John Barnes (editor), Brian McFarlane (editor), Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 Z900285 1984 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1988 pg. 156
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems [1990] Gwen Harwood , North Ryde : Angus and Robertson , 1990 Z313285 1990 selected work poetry North Ryde : Angus and Robertson , 1990 pg. 161-162
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Contemporary Australian Poetry : An Anthology John Leonard (editor), Knoxfield : Houghton Mifflin , 1990 Z361533 1990 anthology poetry humour war literature Knoxfield : Houghton Mifflin , 1990 pg. 31
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry John Tranter (editor), Philip Mead (editor), Ringwood : Penguin , 1991 Z151302 1991 anthology poetry Ringwood : Penguin , 1991 pg. 113-114
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse Vincent Buckley (editor), London : Faber , 1991 Z563845 1991 anthology poetry war literature satire humour London : Faber , 1991 pg. 107-108
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Oxford Book of Australian Women's Verse Susan Lever (editor), South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1995 Z566500 1995 anthology poetry biography South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1995 pg. 113
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Family Ties : Australian Poems of the Family Jennifer Strauss (editor), South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 Z115299 1998 anthology poetry South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 pg. 97-98
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology John Leonard (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 Z461207 1998 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) A thorough survey of poetry by Australians in English, beginning with a selection of contemporary work by younger poets, and going backward in time to the early colonial period. In addition to poems in the literary tradition, it indudes performance poetry, convict songs and old bush ballads. An extensive selection has been provided from the work of five major twentieth-century poets: Les Murray, Gwen Harwood, Judith Wright, A.D. Hope and Kenneth Slessor. Several features are provided to assist the reader: the date of first publication of each poem is provided; footnotes explain unfamiliar words and allusions; and brief biographical notes assist in locating each poet in his or her place in time. Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1998 pg. 190-191
  • 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. 170-171
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Two Centuries of Australian Poetry Kathrine Bell (editor), Smithfield : Gary Allen , 2007 Z1472336 2007 anthology poetry Smithfield : Gary Allen , 2007 pg. 211
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature Nicholas Jose (editor), Kerryn Goldsworthy (editor), Anita Heiss (editor), David McCooey (editor), Peter Minter (editor), Nicole Moore (editor), Elizabeth Webby (editor), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1590615 2009 anthology correspondence diary drama essay extract poetry prose short story (taught in 23 units)

    'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

    'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

    'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

    'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

    'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

    Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

    Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009
    pg. 679-680
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Motherlode : Australian Women's Poetry 1986 - 2008 Jennifer Harrison (editor), Kate Waterhouse (editor), Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2009 Z1592305 2009 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) 'Motherlode portrays the story of children and mothers from the perspective of women and their social and emotional contexts.' (The editors) Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2009 pg. 19-20
  • 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. 90-91
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Poetry Since 1788 Geoffrey Lehmann (editor), Robert Gray (editor), Sydney : University of New South Wales Press , 2011 Z1803846 2011 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) 'A good poem is one that the world can’t forget or is delighted to rediscover. This landmark anthology of Australian poetry, edited by two of Australia’s foremost poets, Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, contains such poems. It is the first of its kind for Australia and promises to become a classic. Included here are Australia’s major poets, and lesser-known but equally affecting ones, and all manifestations of Australian poetry since 1788, from concrete poems to prose poems, from the cerebral to the naïve, from the humorous to the confessional, and from formal to free verse. Translations of some striking Aboriginal song poems are one of the high points. Containing over 1000 poems from 170 Australian poets, as well as short critical biographies, this careful reevaluation of Australian poetry makes this a superb book that can be read and enjoyed over a lifetime.' (From the publisher's website.) Sydney : University of New South Wales Press , 2011 pg. 483-484
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Falling and Flying : Poems on Ageing Judith Beveridge (editor), Susan Ogle (editor), Blackheath : Brandl and Schlesinger , 2015 8829655 2015 anthology poetry

    'Falling and Flying: Poems of Ageing is the first collection of its kind to be published in Australia. The editors have selected a broad range of Australian poems which explore the universal experience and effects of ageing. Whether the poets are witnessing themselves or their parents and friends succumb to the years, they speak with great precision and insight into illness, frailty, death, loss, grief, and retirement as well as the joys and the wisdom that late maturity can bring. There is humour as well as sadness in this fine and important collection, which includes the work of some of Australia’s best loved poets, a volume to be cherished by readers of any age.' (Publication summary)

    Blackheath : Brandl and Schlesinger , 2015
    pg. 123-124

Works about this Work

Patterns of Experience Alison Hoddinott , single work criticism biography
In Her Father's House : Gwen Harwood as a Sacramental Poet Sarah Golsby-Smith , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 13 no. 3 2013;
'This article considers the ways in which it is possible to interpret Gwen Harwood's poetry not only through the lens of what has been termed "the sacred", but more specifically as sacramental poetry whose form and content pursues the grace of the Eucharist. While the Eucharist brings with it notions of received power - and a male and Eurocentric locus of that power - this article considers the ways in which Harwood's poetry reconfigures and recentres the sacraments to render them distinctly female and distinctly Australian. This article goes further to suggest that Harwood's poetry could be said to be more theologically orthodox in this pursuit than a first guess might suggest, tracing Harwood's sacramentalism to other writers for whom a serious consideration of the Eucharist necessitates local and corporeal iterations of the Last (and first) Supper. A consideration is given to several of Harwood's poems, bearing out a discussion of Harwood's interest in the sacraments as not only epistemological and phenomenological, but fundamentally poetic.' (Publication abstract)
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)
Elegies for Mothers : Reflections on Gwen Harwood's Mother Who Gave Me Life and Les Murray's Three Poems in Memory of My Mother Jennifer Strauss , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Westerly , December vol. 34 no. 4 1989; (p. 58-63)
`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)
Last amended 17 Jun 2013 13:00:34
X