Dear Mr. Brissenden,
I am writing in response to your 1977 Herbert Blaiklock Memorial Lecture, "A Fire-talented Tongue: Some Notes on the Poetry of Gwen Harwood". I realise, of course, that it has been quite some time since you delivered the lecture, but I came across it in the 1978 March edition of Southerly, given to me to read by my English teacher. You see, I am currently undergoing the HSC and Gwen Harwood's poetry is one of the texts set for study. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to you for the insights you offered in your lecture. Although you did not touch on all the poems I am studying, and many of the poems you did focus on I am not studying, I was able to take from it an appreciation of her work as a whole, and a greater insight into the individual poems. This insight extends to poems you did not touch on, because I can now recognise similarities within them to those poems you did speak of. Of particular value to me were the comments on her personal preoccupations and characteristics, because I feel that I am now better positioned as a reader to explore her poetry in a manner appropriate to receive the utmost understanding and appreciation of it. For example, it had not occurred to me that her poetry was concerned with such essentially sexual undertones, although I can now recognise this trait in many of her poems. This aspect of her poetry has somewhat altered my perceptions of her as a person, not necessarily in a definably positive or negative way, and, consequently, much of her work makes more sense, as I am able to recognise her sensuality resonating within the poems.
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