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Joseph Carpenter
Gregory Hurst
ENGL 112
Poem in the Park
I once read on a gas station sign “life is what happens when you make other plans.” I
think most of us can relate to the meaning of that saying, certainly Gwen Harwood could. In her
poem, In the Park, Harwood describes an ordinary mundane day many of us parents have
experienced, tired and disheveled watching as our children hopefully expend all their excess
energy before it’s time to go home. Most parents would never undo their children, but that
doesn’t mean that they simply forget what life was like before them, and for those that can think
abstractly alternate versions of life can plague the mind. After all, as much as you love the
