Gwen Harwood
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt.
Someone she loved once passes by – too late
to feign indifference to that casual nod.
“How nice,” et cetera. “Time holds great surprises.”
From his neat head unquestionably rises
a small balloon … “but for the grace of God…”
They stand a while in flickering light, rehearsing
the children’s names and birthdays. “It’s so sweet
to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive,”
she says to his departing smile. Then, nursing
the youngest child, sits staring at her feet.
To the wind she says, “They have eaten me alive.”
Gwen Harwood’s poem “In the Park” (264) is a postmodernist sonnet that unearths the emotional turmoil of a woman because of the life she has chosen. This is an example of a literary piece where imagery and technique complement the shape and form of the poem. Aside from form, this paper will look into the substance of Harwood’s poem and understand the anguish of the woman in the poem is going through.
There are so many poems that tackle the role of women as wives and mothers. However, the method of expression has become redundant and increasingly annoying. “In the Park” is a Petrarchan sonnet that deviates from the context of “little song.” But as Gerald Stern, in order to erase the readers’ confusion to his use of the sonnet in his collection “American Sonnets,” said, the context should be drawn to the intellectuality of the poems (Stern 9). We should peruse Harwood’s sonnet through its texture and range of intellectual framing. Range is the ultimate test of a poet’s durability. He must sustain the tonal quality of his evocation and must not submit to the raucous shackles of redundancy.
Harwood may breakaway from the formalistic Petrarchan tradition but let us be assured that she is in good company with intellectual poets who have swerved away from the standard literary conventions. The famous for this is T.S. Eliot who, in his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” composed the ironic love song of the unloved. “In the Park,” therefore, is a little song of anguish, rather than a Feminist commentary on the role of women in the society.
The first three lines of the poem offer a description of the subject. The first line, however, is a deviation from the sonnet’s principle, “She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.” Two sentences in a line. The first describes the woman’s activity; the second is a description of what she is wearing. The words are monosyllabic, suggesting the gravity of her circumstances. This is what the American poet laureate Robert Pinsky refer to as “calling attention to the thrust and arrest of a sentence” (Pinsky 29). Harwood gives value to the order of words by giving them tonal quality. “She sits in the park” is an arresting imagery. By showing what the subject is wearing adds dimension to the line. Women are, in most cases, being judged by their appearance or how they present themselves to the public. While “She sits” is an iamb, “in the park” is an anapest. The succeeding two lines give support to her agony, “Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt./ A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt” (2-3). The poet is showing that the woman who walked in the park is a mother of three; but it takes a careful summation of facts to show that there is chaos in the woman’s life. The words “whine” and “bicker” connote an annoying situation. Here is a mother who visits the park and was hoping to find solace, even if for a while, but got into a greater disembodiment as two of her children wrangle. One can imagine the world she got into by just the description of the distressing shrills her children make. It was as if she never left their house. Here is where the irony lies, a park is where children can play and the family can enjoy, but the mother was unmindful in the protracted manners of her children. Gordinier, in an article in Details magazine, wrote, “If the usual mode of life on the home front is panic and pandemonium, the world of the domestic goddess is seamless and calm” (174). Gordinier’s statement might as well suggest that despite the arresting commotion the woman in Harwood’s poem faces, she has remained composed. However, we can also interpret this calmness as being stoic, but not to the extent of repressing her emotion. She was conscious of herself, but unconscious of her surroundings. She is away from home, but her domestic role is not limited to the four corners of the house. The word “domestic,” or even “domesticity,” has a surprisingly complex etymology. It would not only indicate someone who is bound to work in the house, but it also subscribes to a prison cell. It is a psychological play, the encapsulation of her anguish. We may refer to the woman in the poem as a domestic slave. In line 3, the youngest child, lost in his own world and innocence, was left playing on the ground. It indicates that the mother is unprepared for her domestic roles. A responsible mother pays attention to the activities of their children and is concerned of their health.
The poem reaches its peak when the succeeding lines describe that her former boyfriend passes by. She felt uncomfortable in that unexpected moment but cannot avoid him. The enjambment in line 4 suggests tension and shift of thought. The words “too late” also indicate an element of surprise, like a person who was caught off-guard when something unexpected happens to his life. However, line 5 shows that she does not really want to avoid him completely, as she still has feelings for him. But she was just embarrassed of her situation. This is supported by the words “feign indifference,” with ellipsis on the second word – thus, “indiff’rence.” The reader is compelled to assume that the woman has lead a different life when she was younger. “Memory composes a story of shames and amazements,” Czeslaw Milosz once wrote (Milosz 21). The effect was instantaneous. What could be more embarrassing than recalling your romantic idiosyncrasy? It is this naked pain of thought that moved the woman to try avoid to her former lover.
A conversation between them ensues, though it seems superficial, “‘How nice,’ et cetera. ‘Time holds great surprises.’”(6) The former boyfriend, on the other hand, pretends to be surprised with his ex-girlfriend’s plight. “How nice” sounds pretentious. Lines 7 and 8 provide poetic punch, “From his neat head unquestionably rises/ a small balloon … ‘but for the grace of God…’” The balloon, though small, suggests his impression of her. To some extent it is to show how his admiration to her has lessened because of her present condition. It is, on the other hand, a symbol for celebration, a kind of triumph. The poet also provides a clue to his position in the society in the words “from his neat head,” indicating a successful career, perhaps. His remark to her condition “for the grace of God…” is an indication of pity and as if as saying “your life could have been better if you ended up with me.” Note that the words “surprises” and “rises” when read in the poem are particularly irritating to hear. They are bare when said invidually but when compounded with other words they become portentous. It is amazing how Harwood kept an eye on the architecture of her poem. Although the words “surprises” and “rises” seemed to elevate the senses, Harwood’s manipulation transformed them sarcastically, with dramatic and ironic impact.
Line 9, an Alexandrine, is a paradox. Though a bench was available for them to sit on, noone took the initiative to sit down. They, however, in their moment of self-consciousness tried to relax by focusing their attention to the children, rehearsing their names and birthdays; never mind if it was inappropriate. The ex-girlfriend pretends that she enjoyed her life as a wife and mother, “‘It’s so sweet/ to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive,’” (10-11). The words cost her a painful effect. Her revelation, though, does not make him happy. He went away, absorbed in his own world. Then the realities set in as the mother picks up her burden and complain as to how her children have taken away her youth and vibe (lines 12-14).
Reading through Harwood’s poem is like being invited to taste the most delicious roast turkey at a stranger's house. The first cut of the meat is as good as the last piece. She values form. Form is the push-up bra of poetry. Stern notes, “The task of the poet is to do it in language. The task of the poet is not to stand up personally, and lift an oar, and smash somebody’s bloody fucking head, but rather to do it linguistically” (Stern 11). Harwood’s lines were not ornate with crude images. Her use of images, on the other hand, is her focus to shape the woman’s emotional anguish. Though the rhythm of her lines is narrative, they are fragmentary elements of her style. The reader is treated to the sentiments of the human language. The lines are alluring, picking up rhythm like listening to the ticking of the clock.
Works Cited
Gordinier, Jeff. “Admit It. Nothing’s Sexier than a woman in the kitchen.” Details. October 2006. 174
Harwood, Gwen. “In the Park.” The Norton Introduction to Poetry. Ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. 9th ed. New York: Norton, 2007. 264.
Milosz, Czeslaw. “I Should Know.” Second Space: New Poems. New York: Ecco 2004 21.
Pinsky, Robert. The Sounds of Poetry: A brief guide. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1998.
Stern, Gerald. Interview. “Number Your Answers: An Interview with Gerald Stern.” Purpura, Lia. The Writer’s Chronicle March/April 2007: 8-17.
(This piece was my mid-term paper for my Literary Analysis class. It took me quite a bit of courage to publish it here.)
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