Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972

by Adrienne Rich

Overview

In her seventh volume of poetry, Adrienne Rich searches to reclaim—to discover—what has been forgotten, lost, or unexplored.
"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." These provocative poems move with the power of Rich's distinctive voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393346015
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/01/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	80
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Widely read, widely anthologized, widely interviewed and widely taught, Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) was for decades among the most influential writers of the feminist movement and one of the best-known American public intellectuals. She wrote two dozen volumes of poetry and more than a half-dozen of prose. Her constellation of honors includes a National Book Award for poetry for Tonight, No Poetry Will Serve, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant in 1994, and a National Book Award for poetry in 1974 for Diving Into the Wreck. That volume, published in 1973, is considered her masterwork. Ms. Rich’s other volumes of poetry include The Dream of a Common Language, A Wild Patience Has Taken Me This Far, An Atlas of the Difficult World, The School Among the Ruins, and Telephone Ringing in the Labyrinth. Her prose includes the essay collections On Lies, Secrets, and Silence; Blood, Bread, and Poetry; an influential essay, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” and the nonfiction book Of Woman Born, which examines the institution of motherhood as a socio-historic construct. In 2006, Rich was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters by the National Book Foundation. In 2010, she was honored with The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry's Lifetime Recognition Award.

Editorial Reviews

Diving into the Wreck is one of those rare books that force you to decide not just what you think of it, but what you think about yourself. It is a book that takes risks, and forces the reader to take them also. . . . You feel about her best images, her best myths, that nobody else writes quite like this.”— Margaret Atwood

New York Times Book Review

The poet is telling of something now standing before her eyes of which her heart is full. . . . These poems are not loose facts, they are parts of a revelation.”— Richard Howard

Harper's

Diving into the Wreck is one of those rare books that force you to decide not just what you think of it, but what you think about yourself. It is a book that takes risks, and forces the reader to take them also. . . . You feel about her best images, her best myths, that nobody else writes quite like this.”

Margaret Atwood - New York Times Book Review

The poet is telling of something now standing before her eyes of which her heart is full. . . . These poems are not loose facts, they are parts of a revelation.

Richard Howard - Harper's

Diving into the Wreck is one of those rare books that force you to decide not just what you think of it, but what you think about yourself. It is a book that takes risks, and forces the reader to take them also. . . . You feel about her best images, her best myths, that nobody else writes quite like this.

New York Times Book Review - Margaret Atwood

The poet is telling of something now standing before her eyes of which her heart is full. . . . These poems are not loose facts, they are parts of a revelation.

Harper's - Richard Howard

"It is hard to overestimate the importance of Rich's work in the landscape of contemporary poetry and in the writing of women's experience and lesbian experience," notes LJ reviewer Christian.

Library Journal