In the Park (poem)
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| "In the Park" | |
|---|---|
| by Gwen Harwood | |
| First published in | The Bulletin |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Publication date | 8 March 1961 |
| Lines | 14 |
"In the Park" is a 1961 poem by Australian author Gwen Harwood.[1]
It was first published in The Bulletin on 8 March 1961 as by "Walter Lehmann",[2] a pseudonym of Harwood's, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's collections and other poetry anthologies. Later publications carried Harwood's name as the author.[1]
An unnamed woman sits in a park with three children playing around her. She is unexpectedly joined by an ex-lover. As they chat about the children she visualises a cartoon-like speech balloon above his head in which is written "...but for the grace of God."
Critical reception
In his book Reading Australian Poetry Andrew Taylor set out to discuss Harwood's "poetry in relation to questions of identity." He decided to use this poem as a starting point. "Suburban monotony and tedium, the niggardly penny-pinching that often comes from having children, the disharmony, the aimlessness: they are all economically conveyed...What we have here is not a muddled poem, but a subtle demonstration of the textuality of identity, its characteristic, if you like, of not being itself."[3]
Writing about the poem's final line ("They have eaten me alive.") Ann-Marie Priest commented: "The sentiment was profoundly challenging for its time. The idea that a woman's children could consume her very being was entirely antithetical to the dominant discourse of motherhood, in which a woman was supposed to find her only true fulfillment in bearing and raising children. Even worse was the suggestion that a mother might resent this unthinking consumption of herself by her offspring."[4]