Quote by Adrienne Rich: “I came to explore the wreck. The words are purposes. The words are maps.”

Language is not passive description — it is a tool for navigating reality and finding your way through damage and destruction. Words give you the ability to approach what is broken or painful, to map it, to understand it, rather than simply drowning in it.

Rich published 'Diving into the Wreck' in 1973, during the height of second-wave feminism in the United States. The poem uses the metaphor of underwater exploration to describe confronting the damage done by patriarchy — not to wallow in it, but to examine and understand it.

American poet and essayist who is widely regarded as one of the most influential voices in twentieth-century feminist and political poetry. Her 1973 collection Diving into the Wreck and her essays in On Lies, Secrets, and Silence shaped feminist literary theory for generations.