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Overview
“Diving into the Wreck” is a free-verse poem by the American feminist and poet Adrienne Rich
. First published in 1973, the poem offers a somewhat abstract and mysterious account of the speaker’s journey into oceanic depths to explore the remains of a wreck. We don’t know what exactly this wreck is, or what it represents. But what is clear is that the speaker wants to see the wreck for themselves, and to recuperate truths that have been lost or otherwise falsified by “the book of myths.” In 1974, Rich won the National Book Award for Poetry for the volume in which this poem appeared, and which shares its title.Read a summary & analysis, an analysis of the speaker, and explanations of important quotes from “Diving into the Wreck.”
