Gwen Harwood: Poems Lesson Plan

Several of the poems in this section are deeply concerned with the nature of language. According to these poems, how does language explain experience? Is language sufficient to capture experiences such as love? How does one deal with the breakdown of language?

In poems such as “Thought Is Surrounded by a Halo,” the speaker acknowledges the difficulties of using words to describe experience but is adamant that language is not a game. The speaker trusts that the reader will understand the experience described, similar to the trust the child has in her parents in other poems, or the reader has when they read the poems later.

“The Violets” and “At Mornington” both provide...