Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NORTH OF ALLIANCE by TED KOOSER

Poem Explanation Poet Analysis

First Line: THIS IS AN EMPTY HOUSE; NOT A STICK
Last Line: but an absence grown tall in a doorway.
Subject(s): HOUSES, DESERTED;
This is an empty house; not a stick
of furniture left, not even
a newspaper sodden with rain
under a broken window; nothing
to tell us the style of the people
who lived here, but that
they took it along. But wait:
here, penciled in inches
up a doorframe, these little marks
mark the growth of a child
impatient to get on with it,
a child stretching his neck
in a hurry to leave nothing here
but an absence grown tall in a doorway.



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