Summary

“Challenger” is a poem in which the speaker describes an unnamed woman who “gets herself wound up … like a wrung rag, or a wire/wrapped round itself into a spring” (46). When she gets like this, it is up to her to maintain her state of intensity. The speaker says they get tired of watching this happen, “the eyes/alive with fury against the self,/the words swelling in the chest … the voice racing into anyone’s face” (46). In the grand scheme of things, however, her outbursts are not so significant, the speaker suggests at the end of the poem.

In “Ransom” the speaker describes the plight of environmentally radical pirates who attack freight ships, fighting for the sea because “no one is fighting for her” (47). When they board the ships, “the white men scramble,” and “when one is taken, the whole world sits...