Eve to Her Daughters
"Eve to Her Daughters" is a poem by Australian poet Judith Wright.
It was originally published in the author's collection The Other Half : Poems in 1966, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Synopsis
Eve explains to her daughters her feelings about her and Adam's expulsion from the Garden of Eden, and how she sees the event and the outcomes very differently to Adam's viewpoint.
Critical reception
In her review of the containing collection Dorothy Green in The Canberra Times noted: "She can dispense
altogether with the controlling eye, with direct meditation, and set up a dramatic situation to probe a metaphysical problem, as in 'Eve to her Daughters', a poem that under its lightness of touch, is profound and horrifying."
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication in The Other Half : Poems it was reprinted as follows:Poetry from Australia : Judith Wright, William Hart-Smith, Randolph Stow edited by Howard Sergeant, Pergamon Press, 1969Judith Wright : Collected Poems, 1942-1970 by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1971Journeys : Poems edited by Fay Zwicky, Sisters Publishing, 1982The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets edited by Susan Hampton and Kate Llewellyn, Penguin, 1986A Human Pattern : Selected Poems by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1990Contemporary Australian Poetry: An Anthology edited by John Leonard, Houghton Mifflin, 1990The Sting in the Wattle : Australian Satirical Verse edited by Philip Neilsen, University of Queensland Press, 1993Collected Poems 1942-1985 by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1994Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 199850 Years of Queensland Poetry : 1940s to 1990s edited by Philip Neilsen and Helen Horton, Central Queensland University Press, 1998Grace and Other Poems by Judith Wright, Picaro Press, 2009Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore, and Elizabeth Webby, Allen and Unwin, 2009Motherlode : Australian Women's Poetry 1986-2008 edited by Jennifer Harrison and Kate Waterhouse, Puncher and Wattmann, 2009