A poet by any other name

While she would go on to become known as one of Australia’s most important and influential poets, early in her writing career Gwen was frustrated by a constant battle to have her voice heard.

Noting her work would routinely be published when she submitted under a variety of male pseudonyms, including Walter Lehmann, Francis Geyer and Timothy Kline, Harwood hatched a plan to pull off one of the most stunning Australian literary hoaxes of the 20th century.

In 1961 she submitted a pair of sonnets to The Bulletin under the name Walter Lehmann, demonstrating she was as handy with a caustic acrostic as she was with a rhyming couplet. Reading vertically, the first letter of each line of the sonnets spelled out her frustrations loud and crudely clear. The first read: `So long Bulletin', and the second: `F--- all editors'.

After the hoax was revealed, and Gwen unmasked, she went on to find wider acceptance and acclaim under her own name, although she was dismayed by a newspaper headline that cast her as: `Housewife in hoax of the year'.

Born in Taringa in 1920, Gwen attended Brisbane Girls Grammar School from 1933 to 1937. It was here that her love of literature first took root, inspired by English teacher Miss Lexie McMillan. A gifted and thoughtful student, Gwen received the Art Prize in 1934 and 1935, and in 1936 was awarded the prestigious Betty Woolcock Challenge Cup for best all-round girl.

From an early age, Gwen’s world was filled with music and language—her father played several instruments, and she trained as a pianist. Her grandmother introduced her to poetry, and, later in life, would become her true calling. After graduating from BGGS, Gwen studied for a Diploma in Music, earning money on weekends playing the organ at weddings. Gwen would amuse herself at these performances by indulging a mischievous passion for adopting different personas—perhaps a portent of things to come.

She revealed to a friend: `I have three characters, with variations, which I play at weddings: The Young Genius, the Soulful Maiden, and the Embittered and Disillusioned Musician. Circumstances and singers determine which I am to be.'

It was almost as if one life, career, or identity were not nearly enough fun.

In 1945, Gwen married linguist Bill Harwood and they moved to Tasmania, where she began to focus on marriage, motherhood and her writing career.

Her penchant for `trying on' different personalities would follow her into her poetry career, where Gwen deployed multiple identities to both needle the writing establishment and experiment with different styles, gaining publication under a handful of non-de-plumes, both male and female, before she was unmasked. She would delight in challenging friends to spot which work was really hers.

Gwen's multiple literary identities seemed to flow from a deep-seated hunger to experience life as multiple versions of herself.

`I wish I had several lives,” she once lamented. `One for songs, one for poetry, one for being an abandoned alcoholic, one for being a cored and peeled hausfrau, one for beachcombing, one for being an Italian…' Gwen’s writing career spanned decades, and her poetic voice—intimate, mischievous, satirical and deeply human—earned critical acclaim both in Australia and internationally.

Gwen’s poetry explored themes of motherhood, memory, identity, and artistic struggle, often critiquing the limitations placed on women’s lives and voices. Her command of form, tone, and metaphor established her as one of the defining figures of Australian literature, publishing over 420 works, including 386 poems, 13 librettos and many critical essays.

Over the course of her career, Gwen received the Patrick White Literary Award (1978), was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1989 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters in 1994.

In 2005, the Girls Grammar honoured her legacy by establishing the Gwen Harwood Society, a creative writing group for students interested in exploring poetry, prose, and performance.

Gwen died in South Hobart in December 1995 aged 75 years. Gwen Harwood’s work continues to be studied and celebrated for its brilliance, depth, and unflinching honesty—a lasting testament to the voice of a Grammar girl who helped shape the literary landscape of a nation.