Hanging Fire Poem

For my piece I began to define beauty based on society’s definition rather than how Clifton defines autism by the dictionary definition. I wanted there to be two different voices heard in my poem. The first voice was that of myself as I reminisce on what beauty felt like as I grew up. The other voice is society and all the ideas that make someone beautiful. I decided to use the word beauty because I have been talking to my sister lately and a boy told her she was not pretty enough to be his girlfriend. I realized writing a poem was a good way to portray to her that no matter what anyone says she is always going to be beautiful. I was able to write my own experience because there is no better way to explain something than through one’s own examples. This advice coming from an older sister is

It’s easy to feel worthless. Almost every person feels this deep emotion at some time in life, but people handle it different. Everywhere people are always judging. Judgement from parents, from family, and even from friends is inescapable. People can tear themselves down in many ways, such as through school, not feeling they look good enough, and even just not feeling like they’re ever good enough to be living on Earth. In Janice Mirikitani’s poem “Suicide Note,” it talks about an Asian-American student currently in college. She tries her hardest, she wants to succeed and make her parents proud. Her parents have high standards for her, as they want her to receive a 4.0 grade point average. Although she gives her best effort, her grade point average is still less than a 4.0, and for that reason her parents are not proud of her, she’s not their perfect, ideal daughter. So she enters that point where she no longer feels proud of her accomplishments, she feels worthless, and unintelligent. She decides to commit suicide by jumping out of a window in her college dorm. In her suicide note she apologizes to her parents for not being good enough. “Suicide Note” is a free form poem, it has no set stanzaic pattern, the sentences break in unexpected places, and the structure varies throughout the poem. It uses imagery to connect with the reader, and the stanzas are set up in way that make the lines to appear as they are falling. Through the use of enjambment, and end-stopped line the

The last topic is about the strength of quality. African Americans over the time has become united as one and tried to follow their dreams. Her poem is a prime example of how some egos are bigger than others and how it can also blur someone’s

The character was illiterate and thus excluded her from others. In the beginning of the story, the shame from the daughter and others was made prevalent as the author wrote “I learned to be ashamed of my mother” (58). The shame and prejudice began to grow when the mother goes to the school to register her daughter. The mother needed and asked for help when she was filling out the forms that were required for her daughter to go to school. The author wrote “The women asks my mother what she means . . . The women still seem not to understand. ‘I can’t read it. I don’t know how to read or write,” (60) showing that the women the mother was asking for help, did not understand her question, because her ignorance of other people. Her poor understanding of the question clearly made the mother feel even more ashamed of herself. The author goes on to write “My mother looks at me, then looks away. I know almost all of her looks, but this one is brand new to me.”(61) exhibiting how the mother never felt so ashamed and embarrassed in front of her daughter. Once the woman realizes that she was on a higher “level” than the mother, she agreed to help, the author wrote “and suddenly appears happier, so much more satisfied with everything”(61). The mother was being ridiculed and humiliated by the second, as the other

The poem, “Hanging Fire,” by Audre Lorde was a very relatable and enjoying poem to read.

Despite the achievements of women in many different fields, society still attempts to limit women to certain roles. Furthermore, in the poem, women “… are defined […] by what [they] never will be,” (lines 19 - 21); once again, the author claims that women are defined by what they are unable to do because of gender bias. Instead of being given the chance to be influential, they are continually limited to staying at home or doing jobs “meant for women.” Finally, Boland tells the tutor that women “…were never on the scene of crime,” (lines 27 - 28). This serves as a metaphor for how women are never allowed to do important jobs; instead, they are left at the sidelines due to the repeatedly ignored restrictions placed on women by our gender-biased society.

“Girl” is a short story in which the author, Jamaica Kincaid, unofficially presents the stereotypes of girls in the mid 1900s. Kincaid includes two major characters in the story “Girl”, they are the mother and the girl. Although the daughter only asks two questions in this story, she is the major character. The mother feels like her daughter is going in the wrong direction and not making the best decisions in her life. The whole story is basically the mother telling her daughter what affects her decisions will have in the future. The mother believes that because her daughter isn’t sitting, talking, cleaning, walking or singing correctly it will lead her to a path of destruction. “Girl” is a reflection of female sexuality, the power of family, and how family can help overcome future dangers.

“Girl” is quite a strange short story compare to all the other ones that were read in class. It is strange to hear the high expectations that parents communicate to their children because of the way they are presented and because of the language that is used. All that sounds pretty unusual and outdated. But in those days it was probably something normal. Also, Kincaid is trying to point out how the world is changing and how women have much more freedom to do what

Sharon Olds was the leading contemporary poet of her time, she has acclaimed several prestigious awards and is well known for her emotional poetry that depicts her family life as she was growing up. In the poem, “The One Girl at the Boy’s Party,” Olds writes a first person narrative depicting a mother witnessing her daughter's approach to maturity. The daughter, who is well versed in mathematics, attends a swimming party composed of all boys. The mother observes her daughter and watches her cross the threshold of childhood innocence to young adolescents. The values and thought of adolescence are symbolized by mathematics, which represents maturity of thought and a new insight into the young girl as she becomes a young woman. This poem also

Harwood revolves this poem around change, through the use of a motherly character she is able to construct a life style that has dramatically changed from free to a fairly constricted. Harwood uses the conversations of two people to get this message across, with the conversation discussing life’s progression with an old lover. “But for the grace of God…” suggests that the ex-lover is somewhat thankful for not ending up as a father figure to these children, as he can see the effect it has taken on her from when he used to know her. “Her clothes are out of date” shows her appearance has altered in the bid to live as a mother, her children are now her identity and that is what she will live to be. This poem is revolved around the negativity of losing yourself through mother-hood and the factors that slowly show that it.

The poem Suicide Note, written by Janice Mirikitani (1987), talks about a young lady, who has studied in an Asian-American female college. The lady, unfortunately, committed suicide by jumping through her dormitory’s window. She left behind a note, citing reasons that led to her actions. After a critical analysis of the note, her parents were held responsible for her actions; they were pressurizing her to perform better in her exams. The poem, thus, describes the real feelings and the emotions of this young lady, who believes that committing suicide is the only option left to please her parents and to escape the enormous pressure placed on her. The persona uses voice in the poem to bring our attention to the sufferings she was going through, and that led to the devastating event. Voice in poetry is the strong words of a line, stanza or a page that creates a relationship between the audience and the persona. Voice can, therefore, be categorized as imagery, patterns of sounds created, rhythm, tone, and diction (Gahern 166). The following is a description of how the voice in Mirikitani’s suicide note helps the reader understand the persona’s reasoning.

and Femininity. The poem is mainly about motherhood in a way as previously discussed. She

The speaker states, “This air will not hold me, the snow burdens my crippled wings” (45-46). The speaker describes herself as a fragile bird forced down by the snow because she is weak. The snow represents men keeping women suppressed, and the speakers crippled wings are what the years of oppression have done to her already. The speaker repeats these words several times, “not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not strong enough” (3, 8, 22, 30, 41, 48). Rearranged in different orders throughout the poem the repetition of similar word phrases induce an emotional response to the poem, and sets a sorrowful tone. The title of the poem “Suicide Note” predicts what will come of the speaker at the end of the poem, which is the act of committing suicide. The actual suicide stands for a bigger picture in the speaker’s life; for it is the only way, she can free herself from the harsh gender inequalities that haunt her every thought. The speaker becomes free from oppression, ridicule, pain, and suffering for the first time when she ends her life.

Webster defines poetry as literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. Rhetoric is only the art of writing and speaking effectively while poetry is the art of speaking emotionally and freely. Lorde says that poetry is to killing yourself as rhetoric is to killing your children. The first lines of the poem is Lorde calling the readers to action, and telling them to put their children first. Feeling fury over the case against Thomas Shea, in the first stanza, in the first four lines of the poem, Lorde tells us that it doesn’t matter the crime or the race, children must come before hatred. She emphasizes on this in the next stanza.

Jamaica Kincaid’s Girl explores these controversies and writes a long form poem that includes a list of rules for young girls to follow as advice that will help them be more likeable and become a reputable “woman”. These rules are delivered in a direct emphasis with strict undertone. The guidelines given to the young girl can be inferred as a mother teaching her daughter who is at the age of adolescence. Jamaica Kincaid’s long form poem Girl highlights the stereotypical social responsibilities of young girls which is heavily defined by language, culture, and mothers. In the poem the mother figure covers everything from how to