Post #1

"Diving into the Wreck" by Adrienne Rich

List of Imagery: book of myths, loaded the camera, checked edge of knife-blade, body armor of black rubber, flippers, awkward mask, sun flooded schooner, here alone, ladder is always there hanging innocently, piece of maritime floss, I go down, Rung after rung, the blue light, the clear atoms, I crawl like an insect down the ladder, first the air is blue and then it is bluer and then green and then black I am blacking out, turn my body without force, swaying their crenellated fans, I stroke the beam of my lamp, the drowned face always staring, the mermaid whose dark hair streams black, the merman in his armored body, obscurely inside barrels half-wedged and left to rot.

I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

This quatrain interprets the poem well because it shows how the diver is on her own and now has to learn how to handle life on her own. Crawling down the ladder with her flippers on, she struggles with the flippers on and with not being able to see when the ocean starts. She is feeling lonely, and worried she won't be remembered and won't be able to find her way around on her own. I think insects tend to move around carefully because they are worried of being squashed, that is why I believe Adrienne Rich chooses this species to describe herself. She is treading softly and is hoping not make a mistake, even though that is not a good way to live your life.