Normal people tend to figure out what (and who) they want through relationships. Poetry in 2011 doesn’t always need to deal with the exalted, the archetypal, or (as is the case with post-modern poetry) the conditions and contexts of language itself. Poetry that configures the extraordinary through the normal is useful because it has utility value for an audience, largely middle and working class, that is being challenged by threatening external conditions, economic and otherwise. Mother Earth is an ordinary story with some pertinent implications; if it is read with understanding, it can function as allegory and its relationships stand as representations of the larger trends currently shaping our world.