Blog 13: Quote-Response Kooser

Well, I have to respond to "Carrie" by US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser (635) because I've met him. I'll try to locate and post one of the photos I took of him. "Carrie" is an 11-line free-verse poem without regular rhythm. The poem contrasts the persona's Aunt Carrie's cleaning dust with the dust resulting from her death. While alive, she worked energetically "like a thunderhead" to keep the house clean. The storm image suggests pressure, power, and drama. I can picture a woman who throws people out of the room so that she can attack the furniture with her rag. What is perhaps sad is that she wasted her energy on an activity that can never be completed. Upon her death, "dust/is her hands and dust her heart." She turns into the dust she fought; in the end her very hardworking hands and the heart that motivated them are utterly defeated. The last line "There is never an end to it" suggests that because the world and even people are made of dust, Aunt Carrie might have spent her life in more rewarding ways, perhaps applying her heart elsewhere, rather than trying to undo what will always be. I take that as a message that it's OK to leave the dishes in the sink so that I can play with my daughter.