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Suburban Sonnet

She practises a fugue, though it can matter

to no one now if she plays well or not.

Beside her on the floor two children chatter,

then scream and fight. She hushes them. A pot

boils over. As she rushes to the stove

too late, a wave of nausea overpowers

subject and counter-subject. Zest and love

drain out with soapy water as she scours

the crusted milk. Her veins ache. Once she played

for Rubinstein, who yawned. The children caper

round a sprung mousetrap where a mouse lies dead.

When the soft corpse won't move they seem afraid.

She comforts them; and wraps it in a paper

featuring: Tasty dishes from stale bread.

Analysis

‘Suburban Sonnet‘ was written in the 1960s and explores some of the subject matter Harwood is best-known for. This includes the struggles of motherhood. She often highlighted the truth of what it meant to be a mother in her contemporary period, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. ‘Suburban Sonnet’ is filled with powerful images and examples of metaphors.

Themes

Throughout this poem, Harwood engages with themes of motherhood, mental health, and the past/future. The latter themes are seen through her desire to continue playing music, something she’s been doing for a time. She plays despite the fact that no one cares how skilled she is or isn’t. Harwood presents this feature of the woman’s personality as a hanger-on from her past. It’s a habit of a time in which she was freer and had her own passions and dreams. It’s continually interrupted by her children’s screaming and the duties of a mother/housewife. She is suffering under the burden of their mundanity and the loss of a life she could’ve had.

Form

'Suburban Sonnet’ by Gwen Harwood is as you can imagine, sonnet. This means that it contains fourteen lines and is contained within one stanza. The lines follow a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFGEFG. Here, readers can find elements of a Shakespearean sonnet, which usually follows the rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG. The end rhymes of the sonnet are pretty consistent, aside from the slant/half-rhyme of “stove” and “love,” in lines five and seven. Having imperfect rhymes in a poem is not an unusual feature. What might this imperfect rhyme mean?

Techniques

Caesura: occurs when the poet inserts a pause in the middle of a line. For example, “then scream and fight. She hushes them. A pot.”

Metaphor: seen through the image of the mouse, the boiling pot, soapy water, and even the stale bread at the end.

Alliteration: seen through the use of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of words. For example, “children chatter” in line three and “soapy” and “scours” in line eight.

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