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I first met Gwen Harwood on a chilly autumn evening in 1952 when, as a twenty-year-old research assistant to her husband, Bill, a senior lecturer in the English Department at the University of Tasmania, I was invited to their house in Augusta Road, Lenah Valley. Ostensibly, the visit was to discuss the progress of my research, but, more importantly, it was to meet his wife, who wrote poetry, some of which had been published in journals like Meanjin and The Bulletin. I remember that, on that evening, Gwen had a German dictionary propped on the shelf above the kitchen sink, that she complained of the Tasmanian cold and that she was pregnant with the twins, Peter and Mary, who would be born later that year. In many ways, Gwen was a surprise. I was accustomed to Bill Harwood's probingly rational approach to academic questions. Gwen was far more impulsive, intuitive and mercurial. The evening conversation ranged widely, from German lyrical poetry to the complexity of English suffixes. At ten o'clock Gwen produced tea and cinnamon toast. Her own recollection of our first meeting included the detail that she was making plum jam at the time. It was the first of many similar visits to the house in Augusta Road before my departure for England in September 1954. |
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