The themes of her poetry, as Gwen Harwood wrote in the pages of Meanjin in 1980, ‘are the old ones: love, friendship, art, memory’. According to Jennifer Strauss, the author of a monograph on her work, she was ‘one of our most passionate and pragmatic believers in thought as an occupation that makes us human, and in language and laughter as our defence against existential chaos’.
Born and educated in Brisbane, Harwood moved to Hobart as a young woman. Her first collection of poetry, Poems, was published in 1963, and the last, The Present Tense, was released in the year of her death. In the span of those years, she became one of Australia’s most loved and celebrated poets.
Her many accolades include a Robert Frost Medallion, the Patrick White Award, three honorary doctorates, and her appointment as an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1989. The Gwen Harwood Memorial Poetry Prize, established by Island magazine in 1996, is awarded each year to the writer of an outstanding single work or suite of poetry.
