...in which she must learn "to turn my body without force." She has come "to explore the wreck . . . / to see the damage that was done / and the treasures that prevail." The wreck is a layered image: it is the life of one woman, the source of successes and failures; it...

...underwater explorer, we dive below the surface reality to discover what lies beneath. Like her, we can say: The words are purposes. The words are maps. I came...damage that was done And the treasures that prevail. "Diving Into the Wreck," (23). Notes 1. For the use of journals and writing across the curriculum in...

...(WTC 28) — form the core poetics of Diving into the Wreck. Indeed, in the title poem, Rich writes: I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes....damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. (DW 23) Susan Van Dyne argues that these poems reveal a split between the poet who "almost obsessively...

...alone." She comes to "explore the wreck," but recognizes the danger lurking in symbolic inscriptions: "The words are purposes. / The words are maps. / I came to see the damage that was done." The words seem somehow complicit with the damage. Wrenching herself from the symbolic into the imaginary,...

...women today as the recovery of their own stones. The wreck is a ship sunken long ago in the ocean. I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes....the treasures that prevail. I stroke the beam of my tamp slowly along the flank of something more permanent than fish or weed the thing I came for the...

...literature. I. Title. PR275 R4B37 1995 823'.309382—dc20 94-39910 To my parents, Joan and Jack Bartlett I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes....damage that was done and the treasures that prevail. Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck" Contents ¿Mft **• Ä* Preface ix I Reading Medieval Women...

...in order to reach out of himself. Or it is like Adrienne Rich's "diving into the wreck" of herself: 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...

...what [she] came for," but in the sixth stanza, exactly midway through the poem, she reminds herself: "I came to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps." The referent of "the words" is ambiguous. "The words" might be "I came to explore the wreck," and/or...

...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....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...

...put on the body-armor of black rubber the absurd flippers the grave and awkward mask. (1. 5—7) 4 n every clime adored, By saint, by savage, and by...blessings thy free bounty gives Let me not cast away; (1. 51—54) 5 the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and...