Ode to Dirt

As an ode—a lyric poem addressing a certain subject—“Ode to Dirt” entertains the age-old poetic form that heroizes dirt into a life force sustaining all living forms and extending outward to the universe. Olds’s dirt, which she characterizes throughout the poem as the basis for survival, plays with the contextual movements of the traditional ode, which often elevated an object or person to heroic or god-like height.

While classic odes were often written in formal meter, they still developed a ceremonious, lyrical mood that celebrated either a person, a place, an object or even an idea. The Romantic poets slightly altered the classic ode to celebrate or elevate an object, concluding the poem in a revelation. In the Romantic tradition, Olds does just that with “Ode to Dirt.” Through the course of this celebration, the speaker realizes dirt's power and force, allowing all that breathes on earth to exist. Other poets wrote odes in this vein, such as John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” which addresses the static image on an urn, resulting in revelations on youth, age, beauty, and truth.