It seems to me that two questions at the beginning of the stanza express the doubt and prejudice of Rich against herself and her work. The fact that she uses her personal experience as writing material, as many writers have done, suddenly becomes the source of inquiry. She asks herself if writing about her love life is a normal thing to do, or such action is so uncommon that only an alien creature would do.
“What kind of beast would turn its life into words?
What atonement is this all about?”
At first, she is confused about the purpose of her writings – whether she writes to compensate for something that she did wrong or not. But then, she realizes that in the process of writing, she is actually being true to her feeling; she writes not only to meet her own need but also to reflect the truth and to evoke real moments of life on the page.
“—and yet, writing words like this, I am also living.”
Rich also brings into question the impacts of her writings on others. She thinks of the waves of sound from wolverines’ howl that are so strong that they change the flow of the wind. This line is the metaphor for her hope that her pieces can alter the situation that lesbian poets have to face, and that her words are influential enough to touch the souls of readers. However, she admits that rather than focusing on topics that she really cares about, she instead distracts herself by writing about topics of less significance to her. She also wonders if she takes advantage of her lover the same way that she uses trees and wars as writing subjects to hide her true writing passion.
“am I simply using you, like a river or a war?
So what is the problem that makes Rich constantly question whether she is being close to the truth or not? What change does she hope would occur? Maybe, as she said, the freedom of expression is what she is looking for. Individuals, regardless of their social background, should have a chance to be heard, respected and should have equal right to spread their words. I have a feeling that the “desecration” is the metaphor for the brutal of mistreatment. The dream of having a universal language between poets are worth fighting for, because female poets minority group are discriminated for their race, their sexual orientation, their socio-economic class, and so on. The same message shows up in Gloria’s advice to writing: “ Feel your way without blinders. To touch more people, the personal realities and the social must be evoked – not through rhetoric but through blood and pus and sweat.”