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Poem, Hanging Fire, By Audre Lorde And The Waiting Room By Elizabeth Bishop

Decent Essays

I read the poems, “Hanging Fire” by Audre Lorde and “In the Waiting Room” by Elizabeth Bishop. “Hanging Fire” was written in 1997 and “In the Waiting Room” was written in 1979. After reading each of them carefully, I noticed that the poems contained similarities as well as differences. "Hanging Fire" features a fourteen year old girl who discusses her thoughts and concerns directly with the audience. She talks about various things as she moves from one topic to another randomly. For instance, the fourteen year old girl is concerned about her visual identity such as braces and ashy knees. Suddenly, she is contemplating about serious concerns like death. In the first stanza, she states that she is in love with an immature boy who still sucks his thumb in private,worried about her skin condition as her skin has “betrayed her,” and worried about dying when she says, “what if I die/before morning” (Line 8-9). In the second stanza, she goes on to tell us that she feels inadequate from a social perspective. She says that she wants to learn to dance in order to fit in. However, she also indicates that she doesn’t want to learn. Those things along with “too much/that has to be done,” imply that she is overwhelmed and she needs guidance (Line 20-21). However, that much needed- guidance isn’t there as her “mamma is in the bedroom/ with the door closed” (Line 10-11). The third stanza starts off with “Nobody even stops to think/about my side of it” (Line 24-25). Through those lines,

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