“Sorting Laundry”

The poet’s work is organized in a very effective way.

The poem, “Sorting Laundry”, reaches it goal by getting effectively expressing the Ritchie’s ideas. With some deciphering, these thoughts can be interpreted as the speaker’s decision about getting married. Elisavietta Ritchie successfully sets up a metaphor comparing how laundry is similar to the thoughts on her mind. She uses three line stanzas and with few exceptions two lines of the stanzas are dedicated to metaphors about laundry and one line is dedicated to direct thoughts from the speaker’s mind. ” The large sheets are an allusion to two sleeping in the same bed. The next major thing to stand out occurs in the eighth stanza, “Myriad uncoupled socks. After taking inventory, it is obvious the speaker is ready and searching for her significant other. But, one of the most obvious and important statements come in last three lines, “a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed. Together the three lines effectively give a first impression of just a woman folding clothes, but then begin to make one’s brain start thinking about marriage. In lines forty and forty-one it says, “the strangely tailored shirt left by a former lover…” The reader is looking to settle down, her days of one-night stands are over. In the poem, folding laundry becomes a metaphor for the thoughts on the speakers mind. ” No matter how busy the speaker is, nothing will fulfill her happiness better than marriage. By the end of the poem, it is clear the speaker has made up their mind; she will no longer have to sort the laundry by herself.