The poem "Woman To Man" was written by the famous Australian poet, Judith Wright. She was a critic, short story writer, environmentalist and social activist campaigning for Aboriginal rights.
This poem is addressed by a woman to a man. She talks to her man about the life they have created together. This poem reflecting the speaker's ambivalent feelings towards the child. She expresses a feeling of fear and nervousness at the idea of labour. In Pregnancy, women suffer a lot when compared to men.
The speaker is a new mother in the poem. She refers to her baby as "the eyeless labourer". Babygrows every day in the darkness of the womb. It has no definite shape, gender, identity. For her, it is only a precious seed. The process of baby growth is silent, swift and far from sight.
She was unable to imagine the baby with a particular face because it is growing in the womb. She says that the child has no name as yet to call it by. She and her partner created the baby by their hunting. Here the hunting refers to sexual pleasure.
Man and Woman play an important role in the life of a child. Man for Financial support and woman for carrying the baby. She imagines her baby as a tree that is a product of her blood and flesh. The folded rose is the baby created from their passion and its unfurling is the miracle of birth.
The child is both a maker and made. During childbirth, the baby pushing its way out of the darkness of the womb, towards the daylight guided by the surgeon's knife. She tells her man to hold her as she is afraid.
