An Atlas of the Difficult World

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1991

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Ongoing Drama of American Identity

Rich’s cycle of poems seeks to define the American identity at a particular moment in history—specifically the 1991 US-led counterinvasion of Kuwait named Operation Desert Storm. In intertwining Rich’s intimate, personal moments and her panoramic vision of America in space (the poems move coast to coast) and in time (she investigates other key events in US history), the poem suggests the sheer breadth and depth of the ongoing drama of American identity.

Rich follows in the poetic tradition of 19th-century poets Walt Whitman and Hart Crane, both of whom Rich acknowledges as influences. Like their work, her poem gives stark and unflinching testimony to the imperfect nature of a nation committed nevertheless to moving toward its ideals. Rich affirms that the US has learned hard lessons, from one cultural moment to the next. In each era, Americans have reflected on how they treat one another, and how they too often fall short of their own ennobling ideals. Rich argues that honesty and a willingness to acknowledge flaws in the national character is the only way to grow as a collective community.

The poem ultimately expresses Rich’s celebration of and belief in community. She argues that much of the drama of national identity stems from the absence of connection and interdependence. Each of the poem’s sections highlights the ache of loneliness and the threat of solitude—its only cure, Rich claims, is empathy, not selfishness; love, not hate; and bridges, not walls.

The Need for Hope

For Rich, being a patriot is a complex dynamic. “A patriot,” she acknowledges, “is one who wrestles for the soul of her country / as she wrestles for her own being” (Lines IX.30-31). Thus, being a patriot is not blind adherence to nationalism; rather, it is a personal, intimate, and necessary confrontation with the good and bad aspects of a country’s place and direction in the world—the same kind of confrontation that a person would have with themselves when “wrestling” with multifaceted moral dilemmas.

Across this cycle of poems, Rich does not hesitate to investigate some of the darkest and most troubling events in American history—events that she believes are core to defining the country as it is today: If “[e]very flag that flies today is a cry of pain” (Line IX.39), that means that the symbol of the nation holds within it all the damage that racism, anti-feminism, homophobia, economic inequities, environmental mismanagement, and ill-advised military involvements have caused for its citizens.

Yet as a self-described national poet, Rich also understands the importance of hope and refuses in the poem’s closing sections to abandon the US to its mistakes. While the temptation to criticize without offering corrective or actionable suggestions is strong, Rich asks readers not to surrender to cynicism, despair, and anxiety. Instead, she gestures toward gentle and tempered optimism. The cycle’s reasons to hope tend to be experiences of aesthetic, sensory, and sublime awe; they include the casual beauty of nature, the clatter of urban neighborhoods, the arching splendor of American cities, the uplift of music, the solace of literature, the subtle grace of love, the steel-strong bond of family, and the healing energy of memory.

That commitment to hope is suggested by the metaphor that closes the opening section. After tallying all the glories of the natural splendors of her adopted California, Rich plunges the section into a heavy fog that obscures such easy and accessible wonders. There, she says, “I am stuck to the earth” (Line I.68), suggesting her determination to hold on to the possibility of ideals while staying anchored in reality.

The Redemptive Role of the Poet

Rich’s America is the “difficult world” of her title—a country too often defined by its imperfections, its numerous falls from grace, and its failures to live up to its own ideals. However, Rich is less interested in chiding America than she is in exploring the ways that art—and poetry in particular—could offer a pathway to a better version of the nation she loves.

Had “An Atlas of the Difficult World” ended with Section XII, the poem would have a much different valence, one of resignation and the desire to blame the reader for the problems Rich sees. But the poem instead closes with the radiant Section XIII, titled “Dedications,” in which Rich acknowledges the power of the poet to define and hold a mirror up to a culture—in this case, shaping the nation’s perception of its identity. Rather than talking to the reader—addressing her audience from a power position, since we cannot respond—Rich attempts to speak with us, acknowledging where we might be in our own lives and spaces by inventorying different people—men, women, mothers, fathers, unhoused people, people in prison, hospital patients, the young, the elderly—who might come across this poem, read it, feel its energy, and respond to its vision.

Rich ends by paying homage to the profound bond of poet and reader. She wants to share a common space and a common time with those who are taking in her work. By positioning herself within the culture that she critiques and holds up for review, Rich celebrates the redemptive role of the poet. In her vision, poets and readers come to shape a community that promises the gift of awareness and in turn justifies the American ideal.