In poems about women, politics and war, and myth [Denise Levertov, Adrienne Rich, and Muriel Rukeyser] construct critiques of culture and ideology from a radical and often feminist point of view. The act of critique guides the central acts of perception in the poems. Their poems analyze women's assumptions and patterns of action, revealing the cultural norms that uphold traditional consciousness of women. The poets discuss the role of the individual in history, especially in the creation of social change. Their myths have an unusual dimension, for critique becomes the heart of the myth. Their myths are critical of prior mythic thought; they are historically specific rather than eternal; they replace archetypes by prototypes. The poets learned, from the critique of women's consciousness and from the discussion of the individual in history, to honor the experiences of individual and social change that belie cyclic interpretations of history and...