judith wright and the universe (an exploration of motherhood)

Judith Wright. Mother, millionaire, law student, billio- no wait that's Kim K, let me restart.

Judith Wright, a renowned Australian poet and Aboriginal land rights activist, has written over 400 poems over her 60-year career, all beautifully laced with natural imagery that links the themes of her poems (including love, motherhood and appreciation of the natural environment), with various core aspects of the universe – night and day, darkness and light, stars, planets and life itself. 

Her 1949 collection ‘Woman to Man’ explores in depth a woman’s experiences and recollections as she prepares to welcome her unborn child to the world. The first three poems, entitled ‘Woman to Man’, ‘Woman’s Song’ and ‘Woman to Child’, which focus on motherhood and the relationship between mother and child by using various symbols taken from the natural world, like threads, night and day, darkness and light, and the concept of an ecosystem. Before delving into that cosmic soup, let’s investigate the titles. 

‘Woman’ 

In 1940’s Australia, women were just starting to prove themselves as being able the live and work independently from men. With WW2 came women’s auxiliary units of every branch of the army, which also led to them creating an entire new branch (The Australian Women’s Land Army) to support the allied forces. Women took up jobs traditionally taken by men for (on average) just over half of the men’s wages (as described in an article in the Australian government’s ANZAC portal, Women in the Second World War: In Their Own Words). The use of the word ‘Woman’ in the title of the collection and the titles of the three first poems again establishes the independence of women from men. It also serves to connect the theme of the poems, motherhood, to all women everywhere. 

‘A thread’ - Connection 

Kids are annoying – as the oldest of a whole bunch of cousins, I know. But there’s something magical about watching them grow and develop, and I know this magic must be felt so much stronger by their actual parents. Parents and children are inherently connected (kinda how family works), and this connection is described using the metaphor of ‘a thread’ in ‘Woman’s Song’. 

‘The thread that ties you [the child] to the flesh of night’ 

This thread is also symbolic of the umbilical cord that gives babies nutrients in the womb. After birth, a metaphorical thread will always tie the child to the ‘flesh’ of their family, like how the umbilical cord ties the baby to the body of the mother. 

In ‘Woman to Child’, the persona says: 

‘I am the earth, I am the root,  I am the stem that fed the fruit.’ 

 
When a child is born, they physically break away from their mothers. However, much like the existence of a fruit, a child could not exist without the energy of their mother. 

 

‘Darkness and Light’ - Spirituality 

Darkness and light are often interpreted to be opposites; however, darkness is merely the absence of light (in methods terms: the complement, light'). Light is also closely linked with Christianity, the most prominent religion in 1940’s Australia, in which followers believe that Jesus is light itself. In the Bible itself, Jesus says, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but have the light of life’. All three poems use this spiritual imagery to present the absence and presence of the child – the before and after of the child’s birth. In Woman to Man, the child ‘foresees the unimagined light’, meaning that the child will bring light, hope and spirituality. In ‘Woman to Child’, the child, once born, will ‘dance in living light’. The use of the words ‘dance’ and ‘living’ reinforces the symbol of light as life. 

Earlier in the poem, the persona states ‘where out of darkness rose the seed’. The seed, another symbol used in all three poems, refers to the child/foetus, and therefore the lack of a child in the womb is represented as darkness. This is another spiritual metaphor, referring to a person’s world before and after they find Jesus (according to Christianity). If Jesus is the light of the world, then without Him, there is no light, and it is dark. Jesus brings life to the world. Though many many many many internet users prefer dark mode, the emphasis on the spiritual fulfilment of light in these poems may influence a couple to switch over to the light side. 

 

 

‘Night, day and dawn’ - birth and resurrection 

Contemplating the never-ending cycle of night and day and life and death is always fun and totally not enough to send me in to a downwards spiral of existential crises... ANYWAY the cycle of day and night is used in these poems to represent the birth of a child. ‘Woman to Man’ begins with the stanza: 

‘The eyeless labourer in the night, 
this selfless, shapeless seed I hold  
builds to its resurrection day. 
Silent and swift and deep from sight 
foresees the unimagined light’. 

The toil put in during the night – the darkness, or the ‘before-life’ of the child – pays off as the child (the seed) builds to a new life (this does NOT work for chemistry tests). I believe the old life refers to the lives, hopes and dreams of the parents before having the child. The heavy use of sibilance adds to the sense of darkness by conjuring auditory images of secrets and whispers shared under the cover of night.  

In ‘Woman’s Song’, the concept of sunrise and dawn is used to describe the actual, physical birth of the child. The first stanza goes: 

                   

‘Move in me, my darling 
For now the sun must rise 
the sun that will draw open 
the lids upon your eyes.’ 

In this case, the sun is waking the child and introducing it to the light of day. In the womb, babies leave their eyes closed (what do they need to see? shadows of hands for them to aim for? probably not...), and move most before they are born. This representation of birth as waking is confirmed in the poem's next line, ‘Wake in me, my darling’. 

A world inside 

When a child is born, they have no one except for their parents. For foetuses, the womb is quite literally their whole world. They live in a warm, safe space, where they don't have to worry about anything. The mother makes this for them both literally and physically – Judith Wright uses the symbol of blood to represent this. She writes in ‘Woman to Man’: 

'Then all a world I made in me All the world you hear and see Hung upon my dreaming blood’ 

The persona’s blood creates an entire world for the baby, much like how a family works to create a safe world for children. She continues by describing the stars, birds, fish and continents she creates within herself, and with all of this, there is also ‘love that knows not its beloved’. Just saying the word ‘love’ in relation to this description makes readers feel super sappy about the world and makes us kinda appreciate the world and nature a bit more. 

To conclude

These diverse symbols taken from the universe and the natural world represent various aspects of a child’s life and the beauty of it, and the poems truly inspire me to go outside, stargaze, appreciate the beauty of nature and