Museums of the Mind: My Friendship with Australian Poet, Gwen Harwood

Abstract

In late winter, 1986, I wrote a letter of appreciation to Australian poet, Gwen Harwood, for her Selected Poems (1975). I mentioned that I was planning to visit Hobart in 1987 and cautiously wondered if we might meet. I enclosed a stamped addressed envelope, hoping, perhaps presumptuously, to receive a reply. After all, it was rumoured she did not like academia and was arguably the finest poet then writing in Australia. She had already won seven prestigious awards and would go on to receive seven more, including three honorary doctorates.