Kukathas is a freelance writer and a student in the Ph.D. program in philosophy at the University of Washington, where she specializes in social, political, and moral philosophy. In the following essay, she explores the idea of utility in "Ode to My Socks" and other elemental odes.

"Ode to My Socks" is so simple and direct that it is hardly possible for a reader, even one not normally familiar with poetry, to not understand it from beginning to end. There are no subtle allusions, no poetic tricks, no metaphors that need unraveling here. The poet sings praise to a pair of woolen socks that he receives as a gift. The socks are beautiful, wondrous, celestial, and the poet is loathe to wear them because he feels he is not worthy of their grandeur. But he resists the temptation to hoard them, and he puts them on...