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Audio: Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
Running time: 3 minutes
Diving into the Wreck
First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.
There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.
I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.
First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.
I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed
the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.
This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he
whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
~~~~
Poem copyright 1973 Adrienne Rich. From Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972 by Adrienne Rich (W. W. Norton, 1973). Included in Vox Populi for noncommercial educational purposes only.
Adrienne Rich (1929 – 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called “one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century”, and was credited with bringing “the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse”. Rich criticized the rigid identities that are sometimes created by feminism, called for feminism that is flexible and open to being transformed, and drew attention to the existing current of solidarity and creativity among women, which she named the “lesbian continuum”. Her first collection of poetry, A Change of World, was selected by W. H. Auden for the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. Auden went on to write the introduction to the book. Rich famously declined the National Medal of Arts to protest House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s vote to end funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. [bio adapted from Wiki]
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What a poem, what a poem. I had listened a decade ago to this recording — and again now: how I would have LOVED to be at one of her classes or readings. What a force — what intelligence and urgency. Thank you, Michael — and I do agree with Sean: “you so enrich our lives daily, and we’ve never once shaken hands nor been face to face.” But then I have never shaken hands with Sean, or Jim Newsome — and many others. And yet I feel closer to them than certain poets I’ve known for years… Onward, onward!
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Thank you, Laure-Anne. Yes, onward, onward!
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Why did I come to poetry so late. Perhaps for enjoyment in my old age?
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I feel the same way about the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty. I wish I’d read him 50 years ago.
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This collection I read, as an undergraduate in the early 70s, from end to end in one sitting. My admiration has not wavered.
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I remember those days, John. We were exploring poetry together…
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I still have my 1973 copy of this book. This poem resonated deeeply then and here we are…
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Yes, here we are.
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I always loved this poem.
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I do too. The extended metaphor is explored fully and evocatively.
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I have to read this a few more times. Fascinating.
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Rich is such an important voice in American Poetry. Diving into the Wreck was the first collection of hers I read, back in the 80s when I was starting out as a poet. But she became so much more significant to me later, when I’d read her essays and more poetry. She helped me see how to approach political subjects and still make the poetry beautiful. Thank you for sharing this one and reminding how much she means to me.
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Thanks, Mike.
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This so great Michael: How did I join and become a member of this “Club?” You so enrich our lives daily, and we’ve never once shaken hands nor been face to face. I remain in awe of this post, this site, Adrienne Rich, and poetry.
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Thank you, Sean. Your inspired enthusiasm is a wonderful part of this dialogue…
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