Review of American poet Adrienne Rich’s poem ‘Diving into the wreck’

Review of American poet Adrienne Rich’s poem ‘Diving into the wreck’ I request readers to please the poem first from the link https://poets.org/poem/diving-wreck and my review afterwards. Thank you. It’s difficult to pinpoint what this poetry does not have. It has mysticism, visualization, metaphor, subtleness and satire. The poem is centred around a shipwreck. What is the purpose of the narrator’s dive into the wreck? --------------- I am having to do this not like Cousteau with his assiduous team aboard the sun-flooded schooner but here alone. ------------- Here the poet clarifies it is not a professional mission like that of French oceanographer Cousteau who is the pioneer in oceanography and scientific study of the wrecks as well as marine life underwater for anthropological and scientific purposes. Then it is a personal mission. Here the poem takes off for exploring a higher altitude. The abstractness of the following lines makes the reader wonder what the shipwreck as a metaphor symbolises: ---------------- 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. ------------- The reader finds the following lines bring out the clarity on the metaphor. Yes, the poet is pointing to the written history and its bias or brittleness attributable to the exclusiveness of the historians who were from the cream of the social hierarchy: 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 --------------- The concluding para confirms this. We are carrying all the myths passed on by generations who never questioned the history or historians or the authenticity of the versions. Only very recently voices rise why the downtrodden, the rebels, the marginalised and the less privileged were never highlighted in any history and why kings and queens have always been celebrated and depicted impeccable and heroic: ------------ 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. ------------- Somehow, this poem reminds me of contemporary history where the whole world is clueless how to stop heads of two major powers opting for the bullet instead of dialogue and diplomacy. The expression ‘fouled compass’ is very thought provoking. The reader thanks the poet for the wonderful reading experience and the questions it triggered within.