Summary
In the first stanza of "Woman to Man," a woman and her partner have engaged in an intimate sexual act with the intention to create life. Conception happens as a result, and the poet focuses on the woman's anatomy in this first stanza. The "selfless, shapeless seed" inside her is destined for "resurrection," or the creation of new life. This process occurs swiftly, deep inside the woman's body. She is not able to see it happen; she can only imagine it.
In the second stanza, the woman and her partner are aware of the fetus inside the woman. This being doesn't have "a child's face" or a name, but it is still intimately known to the woman and her partner. The being is both the "hunter and...chase" of the couple—both the pursuer and the pursued, traditionally coded, in the sexual act, as male and female—as well as the child itself.
The fourth stanza invokes the partner's presence and involvement in the creation of new life. The child is made from the strength of the man's arm, "the arc of flesh" that composes the woman's breast, and "the precise crystals" in their eyes. Continuing on with these descriptions, the poet uses nature metaphors to describe human creation: "This is the blood's wild tree that grows / the intricate and folded rose."
In the final stanza, the poet focuses on conception as an act of divine creation: this act is both "the maker and the made," as well as "the question and the reply." The list defining the creation of life continues: it is a blind head butting against darkness and a blaze of light along a blade. In the very last line, the speaker cries out, "Oh hold me, for I am afraid" as the labor of birth begins.
Analysis
Judith Wright's poem "Woman to Man" examines the physical and spiritual implications of a sexual encounter between a man and a woman. As the title suggests, the speaker is a woman who is addressing her partner, but this personal address is threaded into the communal experience of a couple conceiving a child. The poem is composed of four quintets and has a regular rhyme scheme of ABCAA. Along with the steady rhythm created by these consistent formal qualities, Wright employs vivid metaphors to depict both the sexual act and the time of gestation.
In the first stanza, Wright clarifies the poem's focus on the intimate union of a man and woman, and what results from that union. The "eyeless labourer" could refer either to the sexual drive that motivates the man and the woman, or to the man's sperm, which moves toward the female speaker's "selfless, shapeless seed." The word "selfless" has a possible double meaning: these cells do not yet have a "self," or they are considerate of others. "Woman to Man" is filled with such symbolic double meanings. Another example is the use of the word "seed" for what the woman carries. It is unclear if this refers to the woman's egg or to the man's sperm, but what is more important is that the presence of "seed" inside the woman makes evident the physical union that occurred between the two. Wright uses sibilance and liquid "l" sounds to sonically suggest the sexual act as well: "The eyeless labourer in the night, / the selfless, shapeless seed I hold."
The first stanza establishes a mostly regular meter of iambic tetrameter, giving the impression of a beating heart (which signals life). But the iambic pattern is not strict; for example, the line "silent and swift and deep from sight" begins with a trochee. This singular use of falling meter in the first stanza contributes to the sense of awe the speaker feels for the process happening inside her body. The woman can't see the vigorous creation of life (the "resurrection") happening inside her, and thus it is given a slight sense of mystery.
Though it is still "selfless" at this point (meaning not fully formed), the creation can foresee "the unimagined light." This portrays the zygote as something that does not yet have a conscious self, but that is pulled along the current of development. Just as the specific personal relationship between the man and the woman in the poem is made universal, the process of prenatal development is portrayed as a collective miracle. The "unimagined light" echoes the mention of "night" in the first line, expressing a primordial state along with an awareness of future development.
The second stanza further highlights the primordial phase in prenatal development. Wright does this by outlining images of what is not there. This section reads, "This is no child with a child's face; / this has no name to name it by." Though it doesn't exist yet, this image of a child with a name provides an outline into which the zygote will eventually grow. Time thus functions in a nonlinear manner in this poem. The speaker tells her partner that "you and I have known it well," expressing an intimate connection between the couple and the child they have created.
The developing child is referred to as both the "hunter" and the "chase," metaphors that portray the parent-child relationship as circular and complex with contradictions. The images of hunter and chase are suggestive of death, as well as the survival of a species. In applying this metaphor to the couple in the poem (and all couples everywhere), it seems to say that the couple's creation of a child bolsters the entire human race while simultaneously marking the passage of time, which brings the couple closer to death. The child-to-be is "the third who lay in our embrace," meaning that this was a conscious conception.
Human physiology is a concern in the third stanza. The speaker addresses her partner, saying, "This is the strength that your arm knows, / the arc of flesh that is my breast, / the precise crystals of our eyes." In other words, this section deals with physical human design. The words are monosyllabic (which suggests a broad, sweeping simplicity) until the phrase "precise crystals" in the third line of the stanza. This image zooms in to a beautiful, complex, and tessellated level. Again, we see Wright's ability to focus on both the micro and the macro, the specific and the universal.
The final lines in the third stanza offer a beautiful naturalistic metaphor for human creation. They read, "This is the blood's wild tree that grows / the intricate and folded rose." This metaphor moves in two separate directions: out with the branches of the wild tree, and in with the intricate and folded rose. In order to portray the complexity of life, Wright engages with multi-directional metaphors in such a way that seemingly opposite phenomena can coexist.
The complex, circular, and seemingly contradictory relationship between parent and child continues to be expressed in the last stanza. The child is "the maker and the made; / ... the question and reply." Particularly in this last paragraph, the language begins to take on a biblical quality. The "maker and the made" is reminiscent of God and creation, and later in the stanza, "the blind head butting at the dark" and "the blaze of light along the blade" evoke the experience of faith. The sudden blaze of light disrupts the darkness that is described throughout the stanzas leading up to this one. The very last line, "Oh hold me, for I am afraid," relates back to the speaker's personal situation. At this last moment in the poem, it is implied that the labor of birth has begun. The mention of a blade suggests danger, pain, and openings, and the sudden "blaze of light" foreshadows the child's encounter with the world. The poem ends at this moment of tension, leaving the reader to imagine what comes next.
