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Abelard to Eloisa single work   poetry   "Far above memory's landscape let the fears"
Issue Details: First known date: 1961... 1961 Abelard to Eloisa
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Notes

  • "In the history of Australian literary hoaxes, Gwen Harwood occupies a prominent position - most notably for the Eloisa and Abelard acrostic sonnets ... in which her fictional alter ego, Walter Lehmann, rudely bade farewell to ...the [Bulletin]. (Hoddinott, Alison. "Who wrote these Poems?")
  • Earlier experimental versions of this acrostic poem appear in a letter to Tony Riddell, 5.11.1959. See A Steady Storm of Correspondence, p.83-85.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Bulletin vol. 82 no. 4251 5 August 1961 Z655040 1961 periodical issue 1961 pg. 33
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Independent Monthly vol. 8 no. 1 July 1996 Z589435 1996 periodical issue 1996 pg. 40
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Gwen Harwood : Collected Poems 1943-1995 Gwen Harwood , Alison Hoddinott (editor), Gregory Kratzmann (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2003 Z1008048 2003 collected work poetry (taught in 1 units) 'This collection represents the full body of Gwen Harwood's poetry: all six published volumes, as well as most of her uncollected poems ... with an editorial introduction, and extensive notes providing background to particular poems or obscure references ... The poet's own biographical notes on the pseudonymous selves she adopted in her poems of the 1960s and 1970s add further value.' (Cover) St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2003 pg. 111
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Mappings of the Plane : New Selected Poems Gwen Harwood , Gregory Kratzmann (editor), Chris Wallace-Crabbe (editor), Manchester : Fyfield Books , 2009 Z1635144 2009 selected work poetry

    'Gwen Harwood (1920-1995) is one of the best loved Australian poets of the twentieth century - and a fierce prankster, who published poems under half-a-dozen names and identities. By turns poignant, sensuous and mischievous, passionately musical, her poetry is marked by sure intelligence and a quicksilver, anti-authoritarian wit.

    'This new selection of her poetry from 1943 to her death makes the full range of the work accessible for the first time to poetry-lovers in the northern hemisphere. With an introduction by the leading Harwood critic Gregory Kratzmann and the Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe, who corresponded with Harwood, the selection includes hitherto little-known work along with poems which have become part of the central canon of Australian poetry.' (From the publisher's website.)

    Manchester : Fyfield Books , 2009
    pg. 147

Works about this Work

Acrostic Prank Simon Caterson , 2007 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , March no. 289 2007; (p. 6)
Simon Caterson corrects Bob Reece's statement in 'How Fremantle's First Newspaper Was Hoaxed' that Vincent Buckley was literary editor of the Bulletin at the time of publishing Gwen Harwood's 'acrostic poem prank'. Caterson says that Desmond O'Grady was the responsible editor of the day.
'Fuck All Editors' : The Ern Malley Affair and Gwen Harwood's Bulletin Scandal Cassandra Atherton , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 72 2002; (p. 151-157, notes 280-281)
y separately published work icon A Steady Storm of Correspondence : Selected Letters of Gwen Harwood : 1943-1995 Gwen Harwood , Gregory Kratzmann (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2001 Z912593 2001 selected work correspondence

The letters in this selection were written between 1943 and Harwood's death in 1995. Over half of the letters are to her good friend Tony Riddell; other correspondents include her biographer Alison Hoddinott and well-known figures from literary, artistic and musical circles.The letters are arranged chronologically and grouped into five time periods, each group prefaced by a brief biographical introduction.

Gwen Harwood was a prodigious letter writer who placed a high value on friendship: the letters display the "generosity of spirit, biting wit, and a superb command of language [which] characterise both her poetry and her letters to friends" (Cover). The selection offers a wealth of detail about Harwood's daily life, family and friends life as well as casting valuable light on her poetry and on literary personalities, issues and events of the period and Harwood's relationship with editors and publishers. Many of the letters written during the early 1960s give background details to the use of pseudonyms and the perpetration of literary hoaxes such as the publication of the "Eloisa to Abelard' acrostic sonnets and the poem "The Sentry", co-authored with Vincent Buckley.The letters also contain a significant number of previously unpublished occasional poems, usually satirical or parodic. Verse letters and poems included within letters have been individually indexed.

Hoax is a Four-Letter Word Desmond O'Grady , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Independent Monthly , July vol. 8 no. 1 1996; (p. 40)
The Hoax That Misfired Donald Horne , 1961 single work column
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 19 August vol. 82 no. 4253 1961; (p. 8)
Acrostic Prank Simon Caterson , 2007 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , March no. 289 2007; (p. 6)
Simon Caterson corrects Bob Reece's statement in 'How Fremantle's First Newspaper Was Hoaxed' that Vincent Buckley was literary editor of the Bulletin at the time of publishing Gwen Harwood's 'acrostic poem prank'. Caterson says that Desmond O'Grady was the responsible editor of the day.
Hoax is a Four-Letter Word Desmond O'Grady , 1996 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Independent Monthly , July vol. 8 no. 1 1996; (p. 40)
The Hoax That Misfired Donald Horne , 1961 single work column
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 19 August vol. 82 no. 4253 1961; (p. 8)
y separately published work icon A Steady Storm of Correspondence : Selected Letters of Gwen Harwood : 1943-1995 Gwen Harwood , Gregory Kratzmann (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 2001 Z912593 2001 selected work correspondence

The letters in this selection were written between 1943 and Harwood's death in 1995. Over half of the letters are to her good friend Tony Riddell; other correspondents include her biographer Alison Hoddinott and well-known figures from literary, artistic and musical circles.The letters are arranged chronologically and grouped into five time periods, each group prefaced by a brief biographical introduction.

Gwen Harwood was a prodigious letter writer who placed a high value on friendship: the letters display the "generosity of spirit, biting wit, and a superb command of language [which] characterise both her poetry and her letters to friends" (Cover). The selection offers a wealth of detail about Harwood's daily life, family and friends life as well as casting valuable light on her poetry and on literary personalities, issues and events of the period and Harwood's relationship with editors and publishers. Many of the letters written during the early 1960s give background details to the use of pseudonyms and the perpetration of literary hoaxes such as the publication of the "Eloisa to Abelard' acrostic sonnets and the poem "The Sentry", co-authored with Vincent Buckley.The letters also contain a significant number of previously unpublished occasional poems, usually satirical or parodic. Verse letters and poems included within letters have been individually indexed.

'Fuck All Editors' : The Ern Malley Affair and Gwen Harwood's Bulletin Scandal Cassandra Atherton , 2002 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 72 2002; (p. 151-157, notes 280-281)
Last amended 9 Mar 2010 09:46:01
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