Woman to Child
"Woman to Child" is a poem by Australian poet Judith Wright.
It was originally published in Meanjin Papers in Autumn 1946, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Synopsis
The poem continues Wright's examination of a woman's role as mother. Here she talks directly to the child who she has helped create but who, in time, will "escape and not escape."
Critical reception
In her 1995 critical discussion of the work of Judith Wright for Oxford University Press Jennifer Strauss noted: "The imagery of the poem virtually projects the mother as Creator of the universe – but in a way that mirrors the paradox of the child as 'the maker and the made' in "Woman to Man", because it is the child who makes this Maker of its mother."
In her commentary on the poem in Australian Classics : Fifty Great Writers and Their Celebrated Works Jane Gleeson-White called this poem "powerful and taboo-breaking". She continued: "The poem forcefully captures in Wright's lucid, ecstatic images and sure rhythms the mystery of this and this unique love."
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication in Meanjin Papers in 1946 it was reprinted as follows:Voices : A Quarterly of Poetry no. 133, Spring 1948Woman to Man by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1949Five Senses: Selected Poems by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1963Judith Wright : Selected Poems by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1963Six Voices: Contemporary Australian Poets edited by Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Angus and Robertson, 1963On Native Grounds : Australian Writing from Meanjin Quarterly edited by C. B. Christesen, Angus and Robertson, 1967Poetry 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, 1971Judith Wright : Collected Poems 1942-1970 by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1971The Penguin Book of Women Poets edited by Carol Cosman, Joan Keefe, and Kathleen Weaver, Penguin Books, 1978Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Mark O’Connor, Oxford University Press, 1988Five Senses: Selected Poems by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1989A Human Pattern : Selected Poems by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1990Collected Poems 1942-1985 by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1994Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998Poems for All Occasions edited by Ron Pretty, Five Islands Press, 2002Grace and Other Poems by Judith Wright, Picaro Press, 2009Motherlode : Australian Women's Poetry 1986 - 2008 edited by Jennifer Harrison and Kate Waterhouse, Puncher and Wattmann, 2009The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009Hook and Eye : A Selection of Poems edited by Judith Beveridge, George Braziller, 2014Love is Strong as Death edited by Paul Kelly, Hamish Hamilton, 2019