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Get Inside A Poem - First Fire

This summary analyzes the first 5 stanzas of the poem "First Fire" by Camille Dungy: The poem describes a "first fire" that interrupted the play of some "green girls" growing up in a suburb near a bluff. Through literary devices like alliteration, personification, metaphor, and imagery, the fire is portrayed as a crescendo of music that strips away their naive innocence. The mood evoked is one of naivete transitioning into fear and a slow realization of the fire's devastation, as the stark landscape and their childhood are transformed before them.

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229 views1 page

Get Inside A Poem - First Fire

This summary analyzes the first 5 stanzas of the poem "First Fire" by Camille Dungy: The poem describes a "first fire" that interrupted the play of some "green girls" growing up in a suburb near a bluff. Through literary devices like alliteration, personification, metaphor, and imagery, the fire is portrayed as a crescendo of music that strips away their naive innocence. The mood evoked is one of naivete transitioning into fear and a slow realization of the fire's devastation, as the stark landscape and their childhood are transformed before them.

Uploaded by

api-530720370
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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2 - Can I summarize?

Get Inside a Poem! 5 - Literary Devices: What


Voice: Who is speaking?
Literary devices can you
“Green girls”; collective voice of girls identify?
who grew up in a suburb
1 – Background
To whom?
Title: First Fire
1. alliteration
To the self and world
What can I infer from this title?
Textual Evidence: “green girls”
What is the effect?
- focuses on the impact of this fire on their growing up (6), “oblivious to the
Sounds reflective, nostalgic because it is their “first” beckoning crescendo… hushed
communion” (10-11)
Setting: Where are we? Author: Camille Dungy

Suburb near a bluff What do I already know about this author?


2. personification
When are we? - Black American contemporary poet
Textual Evidence: “the bluff
Modern times; probably before Historical Context and Genre: Contemporary Sonnet
backing our houses / quivered
computers/smartphones
What do I already know about this genre or period? What can in wet black skin” (1-2)
What is the effect? I expect to see?

Familiar situation to audience - 2006 (environmentalism? Forest fires?)


- Looks like a sonnet (14 lines, ends with unrhymed
What happens? couplet); sonnets have a turn 3. metaphor

Fire interrupts their play; they run home Textual Evidence: “crescendo”
to their scared parents (fire as music, 11),
“undulation” (fire as water, 12)
3 - Rhyme and Meter: 4 - Mood and Tone:
- No rhyme What feelings and attitudes are evoked in this poem? 4. imagery
- 12 syllables each line
- pairs strong stresses together - Naivete
Textual Evidence: “A shawl of
- Word choice “stripped” makes it sound like they
What is the effect? haze tugged tight / around the
have been violated
starkness. We could have
- Fear (of the fire)
- Double stresses add gravity to choked on August” (2-3)
- Slow devastation… the realization is slow to dawn
the words
on her

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