Poetry by Gwen Harwood Essay

Ideas and the way those ideas be presented are what makes a poets work characteristic. Choose 2 verses from 1 poet and describe how they testify the distinctive characteristics of this poets work. Gwen Harwood skillfully employs language techniques to explore a variety of distinctive themes and ideas in her poems. This is seen in In The position where Harwood explores the tender-hearted condition finished the simplistic and dull life of her female champion, while in Prize bad she explores multiple universal themes through her male star Professor Eisenbart.Harwood effectively establishes a simplistic meet through her title In the Park to imply the mundane simplicity of the place, the people and the idea. This is enhanced through the simplistic first line as the wo musical composition sits in the park. Here we are introduced to the protagonist with her depressingly dull and monotonous life, clearly portrayed through Hardwoods fancy in describing how the protagonists clothes are out of date. This not only portrays her shabby physical air however overly the idea that she lives in the past and that time has passed her by.The use of negative connotation describing how her devil children whine and bicker, tug her skirt adds to the depressing mood, before Hardwood goes on to tell us that A troika draws aimless patterns in the dirt, helping to that reinforce her lack of purpose in life. The par exclusivelyel entendre of the someonea being too late on two levels effectively conveys that she is too late to show disinterest to him and that it is too late for her and this lost love to regain a close relationship.Harwoods expert employment of the cliched expressions of how nice and time holds great surprises conveys how dull and pointless their chat is to reinforce the superficiality of the situation and the pointlessness of their reunion as his neat head has no remnant of communication left over(p) to share with her. Furthermore, the womans low self esteem is portrayed as she interprets his of the words but for the grace of God as his relieved sense of having escaped her monotonous lifestyle.The vague and unimportance of their conversation is enhanced as they stand a while in flickering light whilst rehearsing the childrens call and birthdays. Harwood implies the facade of interest the man takes in the children who whine, and bicker, yet ironically the woman is talking to the mans departing smile. Her uninviting and uninspiring lifestyle which is perhaps causing him to leave. A sense of maternally love is represented in he poem as the woman is nursing the youngest child. The ambit of the Madonna-like child on her implies something very different when we see her as she sits staring at her feet, her apathy replaces caring and the boredom of her life replaces her joys of motherly love. The final line of to the wind she says, they have eaten me alive. , conveys that sadly he is gone(a) and that she is alone, with no one to talk to but the wind, to which she voices the truth of her pain and disillusionment.The ideas from In the Park are also reflected similarly in another of Harwoods poems, Prize Giving where the arrogant Professor Eisenbart is personal line of credited to the dominating Titian-haired young lady. The poem immediately establishes Professor Eisenbart as an abhorrent character through the use of connotative language in rudely declined. The professor is implied as stodgy and old fashioned character when pressed with dry bookworm jokes where he changes his mind and decides to grace their humble platform.This portrays the humble status of the school in cable to his arrogance and favourable position, which is further exemplified when he appeared and the girls whirred with an insect nervousness, implying that he sees himself as a light theyre attracted to. This gruelling imaging not only suggests the mood of interest in him but also the sound of the assembly as a collective. The head is differentiated in humble black who flapped round and steered her guess, superior in silk and fur, which characterizes her as comparatively less ego-centric that the resplendently dressed guest.Alternately, she feels a sense of surcharge in others around her and in what she is doing when it is clear that Professor Eisenbart concerns only for himself. In the third stanza, the girls are referred to as half-hearted blooms tortured to form the schools elaborate crest which creates an image of the flower arrangement that is the assembly. This imagery personifies the girls as reluctant to represent the school, but also symbolises their innocent flowering into womanhood which makes Eisenbart scowl in violent distaste, conveying that his indifference has turned into revulsion.The simile when Eisenbart then recomposed his features to their best advantage cabalistic in thought, with one hand placed like Rodins Thinker further enhances his self image of conceit and superficial self control f or appearance sake as he stages this pose in this allusion to the classic thinker statue. Eisenbart vies the girls as a mosaic of young heads, Blonde, black, mouse brown as all he sees is a colour pattern of heads and does not ack in a flashledge the girls individually. However, this is changed when underneath a light ne girl sat grinning at him, her hand bent under her chin in ridicule of his own. Here, a spotlight is shone, in Eisenbarts mind, onto the titian haired girl who shows an amused military position as she seems to interrupt him as no one else does. His closer observation now beyond the mosaic shoes a flicker of interest in him, as opposed to his previous disinterest. He remains uncaring and uninterested by the host of virgin hands until once again he is challenged by the girl with titian hair who stood up, hitched at a stocking, winked at near-by friends.He notes all this detail move by move as implied by the punctuation in her attitude of directness, self-composure, s elf-composure and ultimately intention of some act to shatter his originator. The youthful titian haired girl challenges his calm age and power of knowledge, experience and authority as she transforms before him and becomes a powerful person in her passion and her arrogance well beyond his own. From his indifference, he is now the suffered victim to her strange eyes, against precedent dark. Harwood uses figurative language here to emphasize the change of his perspective as the power is now turning to her.Here there is a challenge between his logical sense of reason and the eyesight strange eyes of this titian haired girl. They are odd to him because they allude the sense of reason that he lives by and she defies. The power and passion of the girl has forged his rose-hot dream and his own power is a fake, a forgery, in contrast to hers. The final stanza in this poem reveals that age and power can be challenged as Eisenbarts false superiority is seen through the eyes of the titian haired girl. Synecdoche is employed when Eisenbart is summoned by arrogant hands to show the girls power.She is symbolised by the power of her music, characterized as titian-haired to imply her passionate nature and her eyes that see through Eisenbarts superficial superiority and arrogance. Her power is further conveyed as Eisenbart teased his gown, showing his sexual unease and realisation that his self image is weakened. His perspective changes as the young and fiery girl defeats him by deflating his self- image and superiority. Eisenbart now sees himself differently as he peered into a trophy which suspended his image upside down a sage fool trap.His composure has left him and his self-image is reflected in her trophy as he is mirrored upside down, symbolically converse and up-ended. The oxymoron in sage fool demonstrates that he is controlled by her power. The ideas presented in Gwen Harwoods poetry is made distinctive through her use of a variety of themes and language techniqu es. The powerful ideas represented in In the Park and Prize Giving explore multiple universal themes and give the reader a better shrewdness into the human condition.