Tzarad, which he began editing on his own in 1965, ran for two more issues (1966, 1969) and signalled his growing interest in and involvement with the New York School of poets.

After the breakdown of this marriage, he met the photographer Judith Walker while a writer in residence at the Aegean School of Fine Arts in Paros, Greece.

Harwood's early writing is similar to the poetry of the New York School, especially that of John Ashbery, whom he met in Paris in 1965.

[13] Later, after discussion with F. T. Prince, he aimed for a certain elegance where references to the English colonial enterprise function as an alternative cultural mythology.

There is about this writing an aspect of collage (which Harwood likens to similar procedures in cinema and painting) which he takes even further in the collections published during the 1970s.

In his later work, however, some critics have discerned a falling off of immediacy[14] while, in the view of others, such as Alan Baker, Harwood 'returned to form' with the books 'Morning Light' (1998) and 'Evening Star' (2004).