33 pages • 1-hour read
Abandoned Farmhouse
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Themes
Loss Permeates Experience
Loss permeates experience and leaves debris in its wake. The objects in “Abandoned Farmhouse” point to it and speak of it, even when those who have experienced the loss have tried to leave it behind. The persistence of its power suggests the family will never quite be free of it, no matter how far they travel. The poem depicts loss as a feature of landscape—as an intrinsic part of the human condition.
An empty farmhouse littered with items left behind in a hasty departure is a concrete depiction of loss. The former inhabitants lost these material objects and their home if/when they ran away. The picture is a devastating one on the literal level alone. Yet the poem asks its readers to examine what else is lost. The decision to abandon a home is never a light one.
“Abandoned Farmhouse” offers no direct narration of the events leading up to the flight and forces readers to deduce what has happened from evidence. It says the farm has failed because the man has failed. Fields haven’t been properly cleared. The “weed-choked” yard (Line 18) and “leaky barn” (Line 8) show signs of neglect. “Money was scarce” (Line 13). This evidence suggests a loss of status, confidence, and income, all of which can erode a sense of self and safety.
The final image of the poem focuses on toys and hints at deeper loss. “A rubber cow, / a rusty tractor with a broken plow, / a doll in overalls” (Lines 22-24) are “strewn in the yard / like branches after a storm” (Lines 21-22). The phrase “Something went wrong, they say” (Line 24) follows. The drive to create a story comes to a head here, forcing readers to consider the possibility of tragedy. The death or injury of a child might be enough to end hope for most people and to break faith like the Bible left in the upstairs room. The poem doesn’t directly say one way or another, forcing readers to not only experience loss but to confront ambiguity.
Isolation and Community
The farmhouse stands alone, empty and abandoned by the family who once lived there. Even when it was inhabited, the place is described in terms of isolation. “It was lonely here, says the narrow country road” (Line 16). The place and its people apparently stood apart from a vital part of farm life: community. There is no evidence of outside communication. There are no letters, no gifts, no contact information posted on a wall.
The family lived and suffered on their own. The man, woman, and child are described separately—item by item and room by room. The only kind of tangible evidence of togetherness appears in two simple declarations of fact: “A woman lived with him” (Line 9) and “they had a child” (Line 11). The place does not otherwise speak of comfort or closeness. The only community present in the poem is that of the farmhouse—the voices of individual items which together offer a kind of collective testimony.
“Abandoned Farmhouse” looks at the damage of isolation and loss of community by sharing a cautionary tale involving the aftermath of both.
The Nature of Perception
Kooser’s poem explores the nature of perception by encouraging readers to question perception and the conclusions drawn from it. For example, it isn’t all that difficult to identify a structure as abandoned. The signs are often clear enough to see from the road—and it’s quite likely an observer would forget it as soon as it drops out of sight. Kooser doesn’t allow the reader to stop at the surface, however. The poem’s careful catalogue of details demonstrates how much information others can easily ignore.
The poem invites readers to question how much about a person or a place can be known from observation alone. It also encourages thoughts about perspective—how context affects what is seen and how people understand it. The “things” in the poem speak, but they can only say so much because their perceptions are limited.
Though Kooser’s imagery is straightforward and relatively easy to visualize, piecing together a narrative is more difficult despite the clues. The most difficult of all are the intangibles—those things that defy perception. The farmhouse cannot tell us what was in the hearts of the family. Their old possessions cannot say all that was broken there. Readers may want all the answers, but the poem doesn’t give them.
“Abandoned Farmhouse” demonstrates how a whole world of detail is out there, waiting to be noticed—even when it defies total understanding. Kooser has compared the way we respond to poems to the way we respond to artwork. A painting can stop us in our tracks and a poem can evoke powerful emotion—even though we might not immediately know why or how.
Kooser believes we don’t need to know. He says, “I mean we can, upon analysis figure it out: What is it about that painting that makes it so thrilling, but we have to use language to do that, and our response to a painting is not in language but in the viscera, in the heart.” (Baker, David. “A Conversation with Ted Kooser.” 2007. Kenyon Review).
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