Poet’s biography wins Priest more national kudos
The biography of one of Australia’s most significant and distinctive poets, Gwen Harwood, has won its author, CQUniversity lecturer and renowned literary writer Dr Ann-Marie Priest, another national award.
Dr Priest this week was announced the winner of the 2024 Magarey Medal for Biography for her book My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood.
The biennial prize is run by the Australian Historical Association to recognise outstanding Australian female biographers.
From an exceptionally strong field of candidates, Dr Priest’s work was awarded for her ‘skill and flair like Harwood’s own life’.
The award citation went on to say that the biography ‘truly gives a voice to a woman whose tongue really was her own’.
This is Dr Priest’s second major award for the biography, having won the $25,000 National Biography Award by the State Library of NSW in 2023.
My Tongue Is My Own: A Life of Gwen Harwood unpacks a deeply passionate figure who refused to be bound by convention and reclaims Harwood’s unique and powerful place in Australian literary history.
Dr Priest was thrilled to have won the Magarey Medal and felt privileged to be among an outstanding group of shortlisted writers.
“I really feel honoured to have been included in this group of brilliant women biographers,” she said.
“It’s also a bit special for me because the prize has associations with South Australia, where I grew up.
“It was actually set up by Professor Susan Magarey, a wonderful South Australian historian and biographer.”
The award is further affirmation that Dr Priest made the right decision in taking on the massive task of researching Harwood’s life and work and sharing her amazing story.
“I absolutely loved writing this book, but it was always a bit of a risk — other Gwen Harwood biographers had fallen by the wayside, for various reasons, and there were question marks over what papers I would be able to access and whether I would be able to quote from Gwen’s unpublished letters.
“And then Gwen herself was such a chameleon, a woman of so many faces — there were times when I just couldn’t see a way forward.
“So, I had many moments of doubt, and it seems just incredible to have somehow come out on the other side and have won yet another award for this work.
“Of course, all of the credit goes to Gwen — she was such an extraordinary woman, and I feel privileged to have been able to tell her story.”
The biography has been described as a masterful portrait of Harwood, her incandescent poetry and her battles to be heard in a male-dominated literary establishment.
Harwood was renowned for her brilliance, but loved for her humour, rebellion and mischief.
Transcript
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My Tongue Is My Own: A life of Gwen Harwood follows the poet from her childhood in the 1920s in Brisbane, to her final years in Hobart in the 1990s.
It traces how a lively, sardonic and determined young woman built a career in the conservative 1950s, blasting her way into the patriarchal strongholds of Australian poetry.
This biography draws on a wealth of previously unpublished material and includes revealing, previously unpublished letters.
Dr Priest said the biography was born out of a chance encounter with the poet’s work.
“It was a bit of serendipity, really. I was browsing in a second-hand bookshop one day when I came across a book of Gwen’s letters written from Brisbane in the 1940s,” she explained
“As I flicked through it, I was amazed by the lively, unconventional voice of this young woman – she seemed to leap off the page.
“The letters were hilarious and romantic and moving and honest – I immediately wanted to know more about her.”
Dr Priest said from there she began to track down Harwood's poems, and soon found that they were as powerful as her letters.
“She was a trailblazer in many ways, in both her writing and her life, and I couldn’t believe there was no biography of her,” Dr Priest said.
“She was a celebrated Australian poet, and though she died in 1995, her work is still studied in high schools and universities around the country, so it seemed to me that a biography was long overdue.
“I finished the first draft of the book in early 2020, just as COVID was getting a grip, and with everything locking down and literary events being cancelled all over, my publisher decided to push back my publication date.
“I am very happy that the book finally made its way into the world!”
