Woman to Child

In Judith Wright's lyric poem "Woman to Child," a mother's emotions regarding pregnancy and motherhood are successfully expressed. Although pregnancy is often viewed as uncomfortable, the author portrays it as a life-altering, pleasant, and continuous experience. These feelings about the experience of motherhood are portrayed through the structure of the writing and the use of figurative language. The poem's four-stanza structure divides the experience into a sequence of four different stages, and the use of …

…The last line of the poem is very powerful and can be interpreted in different ways: "[I am] the link that joins you to the night" (20). While this line states that she has given this child life, it also states that by giving life she has also started the child on its journey to death. Although it seems morbid, it adds a sense of completion because the poem starts with conception and ends with death.