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She practices a fugue, though it can matter
to no one now if she plays well or not.
Beside her on the floor two children chatter,
then scream or fight. She hushes them. A pot
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boils over. As she rushes to the stove
too late, a wave of nausea overpowers
subject and counter-subject. Zest and love
drain out with soapy water as she scours
the crusted milk. Her veins ache. Once she played
for Rubinstein, who yawned. The children caper
round a sprung mousetrap where a mouse lies dead.
When the soft corpse wont move they seem afraid.
She comforts them; and wraps it in a paper
Featuring Tasty dishes from stale bread.
(Gwen Harwood, Suburban Sonnet from John Leonard, Ed. Seven Centuries of Poetry in English. Fourth Edition. Oxford OUP, 18, p.7)
In Suburban Sonnet, Gwen Harwood uses the framework of the Petrarchian Sonnet, traditionally a romantic poem and juxtaposes this against the harsher reality of dirty dishes, morning sickness and lost dreams. This contrasting form makes more poignant the poems message of motherhood and the sacrifices required of women as wives and mothers. This period of Gwen Harwoods poetry often explores the personal from the perspective of women caught between
conflicting claims and responsibilities; between flesh and spirit; between reason and intuition; between intellect and feeling; between delight in life and the sadness and knowledge of time and mortality.
(Hoddinott, A. 11, p.111)
In addition, Harwood has been called a postmodern poet; Suburban Sonnet is a deliberate juxtaposing of a mixture of traditional styles in form and theme, such as Petrarchian Sonnet to express disillusionment. This and the following aspects of Gwen Harwoods poetry are in keeping with a post modernist perspective and often express concern with the bitterness of perceiving the unalterable destructiveness of time and the transience of physical beauty (Hoddinott, A. 11, p.60) The continuation of the self through children is a recurrent theme within Harwoods work, she acknowledges a satisfaction in knowing her children roamed the earth as physical symbols of her existence after she is gone. Her poem To My Children rejoices in the fact that we can renew ourselves and overcome the ravages of time in this way. Gwen Harwood claimed to be influenced by Wittgenstein a Post Modernist philosopher, whose complex point of view evolved from a perceived meaningless of all things to a belief in the certainty of all things, through this meaninglessness, he discovered purpose through being of service to others. Harwood herself, examines the pointlessness that can exist in motherhood in the earlier lines of this poem, to the closure where there is certainty of a mothers love for her children. Regardless of the pointlessness of the protagonists existence from an outsiders perspective, the mother in the poem does not lack purpose.
The dichotomy within Suburban Sonnet is one where a frustrated and physically compromised woman still manages to comfort those who are so dependant on her, so much so, that she has no time to comfort herself by fulfilling her own aspirations. However, the poem is not anti-motherhood, it is telling a womans story without the fairy tale images of domestic bliss that abounded in womens magazines of the time. These magazine themes are in reality, the myth, and the poem gives an impression that it is these magazines that are actually anti-motherhood. The bitterest twist in Suburban Sonnet is in line 14, where the dead mouse and its symbolic message of dead aspirations is wrapped in paper featuring the ridiculous message of tasty dishes from stale bread.
The use of Petrarchian Sonnet form, where the octave of the first eight lines, made up of two sets of four lines joined by the enjambment of line four, create the dramatic situation, with the sestet providing the resolution. The octave and sestet are not marked with as strong a division as in other Harwood Sonnets, they crash together in discord, and are indicative of the mood of calamity in this poem. Common features of the Petrarchian Sonnet, are …an idealised reverence for women; and an interest not so much in the beauty of the lady…but in the suffering of the lover, and the disastrous nature of love. (Croft J. Enlgish100 Advisory Materials p.). Harwoods use of a traditionally romantic style of sonnet exhibits a satirical black comedy. In a musical performance by Robyn Archer, the music of the fugue
the woman attempting to practise is under constant attack by the short staccato statements of the domestic accidents which repeatedly interrupt and break into the smooth continuous rhythm she is trying to establish.
(Hoddinott, A. 11, p.60)
The use of the fugue in this poem is in keeping with a theme within Gwen Harwoods work. She used the term fugal form to describe her work and her blending of music to poetic structure. In the structure of poem itself, the lines are broken in unexpected places and flow forward in others, this gives a disjointed feeling of chaos. The overall image is one a woman who is not at all idealised but is exhausted and ill. This woman is attempting to maintain a domestic harmony in a chaotic setting while her zest ebbs away.
For many reasons, Harwood chose to adopt pseudonyms for much of her poetry. In an interview in 180, she commented that the disguises of the late fifties and sixties were a way of retaining her privacy and ensured that her poetry was not prejudged by knowledge of its author.
Looking back at these poems written about twenty years ago I see myself behaving like a mother duck feigning a broken wing to draw enemies away from her secret nest. I have never been a confessional poet, and would not want to be…Why should people find different meanings in the text if they think the work is by the morning housewife in the broom cupboard and not the afternoon genius in romantic golden light?
(Hoddinott, A. 11, pp.86-87)
Gwen Harwood shows a continual resistance to the sureness of categories and her use of pseudonyms in her work was in keeping with a postmodern philosophical approach to her work.
Suburban Sonnet was originally published under her third pseudonym, Miriam Stone. Miriam was different to the previous two pseudonyms who were masculine, of Eastern European descent, and like Harwood were exiles from their place of birth. Stone was an imprisoned housewife, a mother, she allowed Harwood to express the point of view that
…it is those we love who make the greatest and most consuming demands and that therefore love and hatred are not opposite and mutually exclusive emotions but are two sides of the same reality and the same relationships…The conventional expectations fostered by society and womens magazines (tasty dishes from stale bread -line 14)..only make these impulses more destructive because they must be concealed under the conventional mask of loving wife and mother. The recurrent images of maiming and cannibalism in these (Miram Stones) poems are more painful and more blackly comic because they are the wounds delivered to and by the objects of love.
(Hoddinott, A. 11, pp.10-104)
Suburban Sonnet is an example of one of Gwen Harwoods most recurring topics during this period, where the nurturing of others is at the expense of nurturing the self. The language of this poem show the poet parodying the traditional topics addressed, usually by men, in the sonnet, where love, lust and adoration often abound. Here, the reader is given a domestic picture including bouts of morning sickness, the chaos of pots boiling over and capering children at the womens feet. Suburban Sonnet is an elegy, complete with a dead mouse in line 10, a symbol of the womans dead aspirations. As with other mothers in her work, this mother has been eaten alive by her children. Like Yeats, Harwood was preoccupied with masks and imaginary personalities, these characters took on the title of author for much of her work. These characters were not merely pseudonyms, they had detailed lives and were rounded characters separate to the work Harwood submitted under their names. Harwood was quoted in The Australian, as saying I like masks, I like belonging to a carnival (Hoddinott, A. 11, p.85) She felt the disguises she used in the fifties and sixties were a means of being able to express her feelings without being misunderstood or hurting those closest to her.
Music was an intrinsic part of Gwen Harwood's life, as a young woman, she aspired to becoming a Concert Pianist. Her first position after leaving school was as a piano teacher. In Suburban Sonnet, the she manages to use imagery and a disjointed rhythm to create a theme of discord and chaos within the structure of the sonnet with a musical deftness.
The mundane events presented in the poem examine a more complex perspective on an archetypal housewife's existence. There is feeling of resignation and exhaustion expressed that, no doubt Harwood had experienced. It is easy to understand why at the time Suburban Sonnet was written that Harwood chose to adopt a pseudonym. The need to protect herself, and her family in this way is an interesting commentary on the freedom of women in Australia during this era. Gwen Harwood's influences are diverse; her search for meaning is intrinsic in Suburban Sonnet as it explores the integration between the present and the past, the physical as opposed to memory and myth versus truth. Suburban Sonnet is a brave work, it confronts the myths of motherhood that abound in our society, and makes the attempt to separate the illusion from the real.
Bibliography
Hoddinott, A. 11, Gwen Harwood The Real and Imagined World,
William Collins Publishers Ltd, New Zealand
Croft J. 000, Enlgish100 Advisory Materials p.
Vonderosten, R. Date not on file (accessed 5 Jan. 001)
Definition of Post Modernism http//instruction.ferris.edu/vonderostenr/SF/post.html
References
Hoddinott, A. 11, Gwen Harwood The Real and Imagined World,
William Collins Publishers Ltd, New Zealand
Mattox, J. 000 (accessed 5 Jan. 001)
Post Modernism or post-Post Modernism
http//www.jonmattox.com/grids/ideas/postmodernism.html
Mishlove,J. 1 (accessed 5 Jan. 001)
The Integration of Wisdom and Knowledge
http//www.mishlove.com/transcripts/brown1.htm
Matthews, Frances Russell, Senior English Guide-Gwen Harwood, 000, Phoenix Education Pty Ltd, Albert Park
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