Thoughts on "Diving Into the Wreck"

I enjoyed reading the poem diving into the wreck. We read it a few of days ago, but I have the urge to write about it now.

This poem was really interesting because it really spoke a lot about how Adrienne Rich feels about the history of women and how they have acted, all hidden in quite a descriptive metaphor. She talks about diving into a shipwreck and that idea of descending into the depths, into what once was...like back into a historic time (perhaps in terms of women). In my interpretation I see her describing the ship as if it were some long lost women, or just women of the past in general. She adds lines like, "Who downed face sleeps with open eyes/whose breasts still bear the stress/whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies...half wedged and left to rot" (55). In these lines she discusses the ship literally but i feel she is discussing women metaphorically. The way women have been suppressed for decades and still "bear the stress" of their histories and lives. Rich mentions the ship's cargo of silver and copper which has been left at the bottom of the ocean to rot. Like all those women spending their lives doting on their career minded husbands and households, their smart minds and goals (the silver and copper) left to "rot". I know she is talking about women in general when she uses the word "we" in her next line, "we are the half-destroyed instruments/ that once held to a course". We as in women are half-destroyed?? Perhaps with our "wasted" histories of male dominance, we once held to the course of success but then veered off into the wrong direction where we are anomalously and "our names do not appear." Rich is very concerned about the way women have been given credit for their accomplishments in history (or their lack of effort because of suppression...). Her poem illustrates a bit of that within the writing.