Whether Rich intended “Diving into the Wreck” to be a politically active or a more deeply personal confessional poem is unknown. There is plenty of evidence to argue either intention considering Rich’s personal history around the time of this poem includes both her individual acceptance of her queerness and her relationships with other marginalized groups through her participation in several social rights movements. The speaker may represent Rich embarking on her own confessional deep dive into the subconscious by discussing taboo themes like queerness, “I am she: I am he” (77). The speaker may also refer to a larger group of people who were left out of the “book of myths” in which their “names do not appear” (92-94). Without knowing which style Rich intended, readers can still note an examine the way the speaker morphs from a singular first-person pronoun to a plural one.

Even though...