Diving into the Wreck

By the time she published “Diving into the Wreck,” Rich was already establishing herself as a feminist and a leftist. In her work, she began to more explicitly address the social ills she witnessed and found detrimental to society. “Diving into the Wreck” operates as a metaphor that argues for a reckoning with previous presentations of culture and history and radically changing the contemporary world to make space for previously silenced voices. When Erica Jong reviewed the collection for Ms. Magazine, she noted that Rich identifies the problem but also offers a solution. In her stanza that posits images of the mermaid and merman circling about the wreck and becoming one with the speaker, Jong comments, “This stranger-poet-survivor carries ‘a book of myths’ in which her/his ‘names do not appear.’ These are the old myths ... that perpetuate the battle between the sexes. Implicit in Rich’s image of the androgyne is the idea that we must write new myths, create new definitions of humanity which will not glorify this angry chasm but heal it” “Adrienne Rich.” Poetry Foundation).

Rich’s poem ends on this ambivalent note, reminding the reader that women have not had their names appear in the book of myths but suggesting that there is a way forward, through a reconsideration of gender roles, and a new sense of community and connection between the sexes.