Essay About Ode to Dirt

Dirt. The brown barky material is used for very few things. Lifeless material sitting there, not unique to anyone. Sharon Olds disagrees with the typical stereotype about dirt. Olds used to be like the majority of people who saw dirt as nothing special and just a typical meaningless material. That was until she gained a new perspective on things that are perceived as useless. In her poem “Ode to Dirt,” she realizes and explains through different word choices, and figurative language that she needed to apologize to dirt and instead of looking at it as useless, she should celebrate it instead and acknowledge all that dirt has done not only for the environment but for the beings living in that there.

To begin, Olds uses figurative language such as metaphors and personification, and different word choices to apply different connotations to people and apologize to dirt. For example, she uses a negative connotation to provide the fact she used to ‘insult’ dirt and not appreciate it to its full potential. “Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you/ I thought that you were only the background” (Olds 1-2.) Olds is apologizing using the negative connotation of slighted you to provide the fact she did not treat dirt with the respect it deserved. She clearly stated her apology towards dirt because she never acknowledged it, only as something in the background. To continue, she uses another negative connotation to exclaim how she never thought of dirt as the same as one of us. “I had never honored you as a living/ equal, I was ashamed of myself/ as if I had not recognized/ a character who looked so different from me” (Olds 10-13.) Olds elaborates on how she never realized dirt was equal to her because it was different from her. Apologetically, she was ashamed of herself for not honoring something different than her when she should have been celebrating dirt the whole time. Lastly, she uses figurative language to explain there is more meaning to things than what they just appear as. “It's as if I had only loved the stars/ and not the sky which gave them space/ in which to shine” (Olds 5-7.) She uses a metaphor to explain that in order for things to shine, they need something else to let them. She connects this to dirt by saying that she never realized we need dirt to get the beauty of nature. Without dirt, there would be no flowers, or grass to make the world colorful. She is disappointed that she did not realize that things need help in order to shine. To conclude, Olds uses word choices such as negative connotation, and figurative language with a metaphor to apologize to dirt.

To continue, Olds never realized how important dirt was and is to us, and learns to celebrate it after apologizing. She uses figurative language and word choice to celebrate what dirt is to us.  To begin, she used personification to show how dirt benefits us. “Subtle, various,/ sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,/ you’re our democracy” (Olds 7-9.) She personifies dirt as the building block for our environment by using the word skin to describe the community. She is celebrating that such a small material should be celebrated for helping build our home. To elaborate, she uses a metaphor to show beings and dirt are not different and are very similar. “But now I can see us all, made of the/ same basic materials—/ cousins of that first exploding from nothing—/ to our intricate equation together” (Olds 14-17.) Using a metaphor, she explains how we and dirt are no different from each other celebrating we came together from the same evolution. The intricate equation together implies we need one another to be able to thrive. Finally, she uses a positive connotation to show how dirt teaches us and helps us live and survive. “O dirt,/ help us find ways to serve your life,/ you who have brought us forth, and fed us,/ and who at the end will take us in” (Olds 18-20.) She uses positive connotation to elaborate on how dirt serves us and helps us thrive. She wants to celebrate dirt by providing ways to help dirt and honor it while it assists us to survive and provide the beauty of nature. To end, Olds celebrates dirt by using figurative language, and positive word choice to explain how she celebrates dirt.

To wrap up, Sharon Olds realized and changed her point of view on dirt. She apologized for not appreciating all the things it provides for us, and how she used to treat it as useless material and now has learned to celebrate it. She concluded that just because dirt looks different than us, doesn’t mean it should be unappreciated because we and dirt are similar in many ways. She explains through positive and negative word choice, and figurative language that she needed to apologize to dirt, and instead of looking at it as useless, she should celebrate it and acknowledge all that dirt has done, not only for the environment but for the beings living there.