Power was born on 6 January 1870 at Mount Joy (now known as Balvaird), on the outskirts of Campbell Town, Tasmania, Australia.[1][2][3] She was named for her great aunt, Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington.[2] Her parents were Thomas Power, council clerk of Campbell Town, and Anstie Munro (née Hull).[4] On her paternal side, she was the granddaughter of the British Army officer Surveyor General of Tasmania, Robert Power,[5][6] who was born in Ireland.[7]
Power grew up in Campbell Town, receiving little formal education, but learned to read in her fathers library and studied the French and Italian languages as a teenager.[1] Power moved to the Tasmanian capital Hobart in 1902, where she ran a guest-house with her sister.[1][6]
Between 1909 and 1932, Power contributed poems to the Bulletin, Lone Hand and Australasian.[3][6] Her poems dwelled on themes including "death, love, growing old, the loss of friends and the persistence of the past in the present."[3] Power's work was included in The Australian Poetry Annual (1920)[6] and Louis Lavater's The Sonnet in Australasia (1926).[1] Her works were also collected into two anthologies, Poems (1934) and A Lute with Three Strings (1964), both with introductions written by Clive Samson.[3] Power also held adult literacy classes and later joined a poetry reading group in Hobart.[1][4]
Power died on 27 November 1957 in South Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.[1] Her archives are held in the Clive Samson Collection at the University of Tasmania.[4][8]
