1. What does the example of personification in the first stanza of “Hanging Fire” reveal about the speaker?
In the first stanza of Hanging Fire, the speaker says “my skin has betrayed me.” This reveals that the speaker is unhappy and insecure with her skin, and probably the rest of their body.
2. Reread lines 1–7 of “Hanging Fire.” Based on these lines, what inferences can you make about the speaker of the poem?
From these lines, we can infer that the author is an insecure teenager, who worries about what people think about her. An example of this is when the speaker says “how come my knees are so ashy.” This shows insecurity.
3. Reread lines 19–21 of “Hanging Fire.” What does the contradiction or inconsistency expressed in these lines
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Identify and explain one possible theme in “Hanging Fire.” (What happens to people in real life that also happens in the poem?)
One possible theme in “Hanging Fire” is insecurity. In each stanza, the speaker tells of something that they don’t have, which makes them feel bad about themselves. “How come my knees are so ashy”, “My room is too small”, or “I should have been on the math team” are all examples of the speaker’s insecurities.
5. Identify a simile Mora uses in “Teenagers” that suggests what the speaker’s grown children are like and explain.
The simile that Pat Mora uses in the poem is “Open as sunflowers in my hand.” This simile describes the children as being happy, and open with the joy of being with their mother.
6. The speaker in each poem has a specific point of view, or position about the subject matter of the poem. Tell one way the points of view are similar and one way they are different.
One of the ways that the point of views are different is the age of the speaker. The age shows the maturity of the speaker, and what the speaker sees. The speaker from “Hanging Fire” is a teenager who feels insecure about herself, and their point of view in the poem is describing the speaker’s problems. In “Teenagers”, the speaker is the mother, and she is describing how her own teenagers are growing up through life, and how they eventually grow into good men or