The work will outlast the life: Gwen Harwood as feminist icon

Gwen Harwood may be one of Australia’s most celebrated 20th century poets but has often not been seen for the passionate figure she truly was. A new biography tries to change that.
A grey-haired woman wearing a white shirt and white-framed glasses sits in front of a crowded bookcase.

Ann-Marie Priest’s new biography of Australian poet Gwen Harwood, My Tongue Is My Own, shows us the passion behind the poems, and makes us question the way we view the public figures we love.

Harwood is most famous as a poetic trickster, who once sent the editors of The Bulletin an acrostic poem that directed ‘all editors’ to do something obscene.

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Vanessa Francesca is a writer who has worked in independent theatre. Her work has appeared in The Age, The Australian and Meanjin