These are all words I have heard and continue to hear in my life. These are all words that relate to me, just in an extremely derogatory way. Being gay is something that is becoming more and more acceptable in our society, but living as a lesbian proves an everyday struggle for me and one that most underestimate. Granted, it comes with its benefits, but those benefits come with no lack of discrimination or hardship. Adrienne Rich understood this among the fact that in order to communicate the hardships we must do so in an effective and creative way. She completely crushes the obstacle of speaking the faults of our world, which I have insurmountable trouble communicating. Rich’s activism arises through the words of her poems.
Adrienne Rich, U.S. poet, scholar and critic, was born on May 16, 1929, in Baltimore, MD. She began writing as a young child, finding solace in the art. She was published at a young age, while in college. After graduating with a degree in English, Rich married an economics professor, Alfred Conrad. The couple soon started a family that would grow to include three boys. Rich soon felt the struggles of adhering to a society that pushed traditional values. The pressures of being a wife and mother are strong enough already, that being gay proved an immense and seemingly impossible task. Rich broke free from these demands through her poetry. She challenged social norms, questioning things such as the Vietnam War and the inequality between men and women. In the midst of her entrance to a life of liberation, she left her husband. She later met a woman named Michelle Cliff and stayed with her for the rest of her life (Biography.com)
“Diving into the Wreck”, a poem of a diver exploring a shipwreck, best illustrates Adrienne Rich’s attitudes towards being a woman and the traditions of a heteronormative society. We can best see this by her use of symbols and imagery. One powerful one is the “Book of Myths”. By mentioning it first among the items it gets us to look skeptically upon this diver. This diver explains their gear as “absurd”, “grave”, and “awkward”. It does not fit. It is a myth. At the end of the poem, the diver explains themselves as both “he” and “she”. When the diver is in the ocean they find another person.
Finally, the diver elaborates that they found “a book of myths in which our names do not appear” (Rich, 92-95). They do not follow the myth, the lie. The other main symbol is the ocean itself. The diver is exploring it. This gets the reader to visualize Rich’s exploration into a world that cared not about the gender you loved. Exploring a shipwreck is complicated, creepy or scary, yet exciting. This is exactly how Rich may have felt when testing the waters of a new relationship; a relationship that meant something to her. Overall, her stubbornness in avoiding the restricting rules of society is portrayed through the prose of this poem. It is free verse and follows no pattern. Simply put, it is just like Rich. She will not follow a pattern, like these words, yet both seem to flow in a beautiful, harmonious way.
Rich was a trailblazer. She was a courageous and beautiful woman. Even today I find it hard to constantly come out to people. I find it tiring to explain how certain words can be offensive, and certain norms shouldn’t be forced. She did this so often, and in a time where she faced much more resistance to change than I do today. I commend her ability to do so especially in such a symphonic and commanding way. Without her creative efforts in changing the attitudes of everyone around her, her words would not have been so effective.
