Sorting Laundry

"Sorting Laundry" by Elisavietta Ritchie

When initially reading this poem, I believed the speaker to be a mistress of man she seemed to be speaking of. The line "left by a former lover..." (Ritchie, line 42), first confused me as I believed the speaker was referencing the man. Once understood, it made sense for it to be about the girl realizing and remembering her own former lover and the remnant she has left from the relationship  Also, the beginning of the poem in the first stanza, it made me believe that the speaker wanted the man to be folded into her life and not that the man was already a major part of her life. The hyperbole in the last stanza of the poem explains and exemplifies the enormous feeling the speaker has for the man. Clearly, the speaker has a large piece of their time, energy, and life in the man she lives with. The piece is so large that she cannot image how empty she would fell and how she would fill the emptiness. Lastly, the shift in line forty comes as if I was to place myself in the folding positon. When I find something with a memory attached around the house, I reminisce and sometimes the feelings come back. The speaker experienced this in the poem and the tone of the poem shifted when she found an object that brought back a swirl of memories that cause her to question and wonder about her current relationship. 

I taste a liquor never brewed

"I taste a liquor never brewed" by Emily Dickinson

"And Saints-to windows run-/ To see the little Tippler"(Dickinson, lines 14-15).

The title of this poem can be misleading from the beginning. The title mentions liquor and the subject may seem to be of liquor. Instead, the poem relishes on the idea of being drunk on the nature given to us. By the speaker stating that the liquor is never brewed, the liquor is known to be just a figurative and metaphorical comparison to something else. As the speaker transitions into making earthy comparisons to being drunk, it becomes understood that the drunkenness experienced is on the nature and surroundings of the world. As the last stanza begins, it can be confused by the Seraphs and Saints. Being Godly beings, the Seraphs and Saints would be out of character to be running to the window to see a drunk person slumping on a lamp post. Also, because the poem is not literal, this cannot be taken literal either. The Seraphs and Saints are running to see the other people who are drunk on the nature and environment around them. It would be especially important as the nature around us was created by God for us. To praise and be drunk on it would be something a Godly person would run and rejoice to see.