The Full Text of “Hanging Fire”
The Full Text of “Hanging Fire”
-
“Hanging Fire” Introduction
-
In Audre Lorde's "Hanging Fire," a teenage girl lists all her problems and anxieties, from the melodramatic ("my skin has betrayed me") to the genuinely troubling ("momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed"). Through this poem's portrait of a sensitive, self-conscious 14-year-old, Lorde suggests that one of the more painful parts of being a teenage girl is facing the fact that one is turning into a woman—and being a woman is far from easy. "Hanging Fire" first appeared in Lorde's important 1978 collection The Black Unicorn.
-
-
“Hanging Fire” Summary
-
The poem's speaker proclaims that she's 14 years old and that her skin has suddenly become her enemy by breaking out in pimples. She's in love with a boy who's still so young he sucks his thumb in private. She laments that her knees are always dry and grey, frets about what would happen if she died before morning came—and she notices that her mother has gone into her bedroom and shut the door.
The speaker tells herself that she's got to learn to dance before the next party rolls around. She gripes that her bedroom is too small, then fantasizes that she might die before she graduates from high school. Everyone, she imagines, would sing sad songs at her funeral, but then they'd also tell the terrible, embarrassing truth about her. She complains that she doesn't want to do anything, but has to do too much stuff—and she notices, again, that her mother has gone into her bedroom and shut the door.
The speaker is irritated that no one ever considers her perspective on things. She's annoyed that a boy who got worse scores than she did got chosen for the Math Team over her. She complains that she's stuck getting braces and that she doesn't have an outfit to wear tomorrow. She frets about whether she's even going to live to adulthood—and she notices, once again, that her mother has gone into her bedroom and shut the door.
-
-
“Hanging Fire” Themes
-
The Pains of Adolescent Girlhood
In "Hanging Fire," Audre Lorde paints a funny but sympathetic portrait of a young teenager. The poem's 14-year-old speaker has a long list of worries and complaints about her life. Some of these worries are still childish, and some are a lot more adult than she's prepared for. Through the comical, poignant contrast between this girl's different kinds of troubles, Lorde suggests that being a teenage girl, stuck between childhood and womanhood, is a heavy and discombobulating burden.
Many of the speaker's complaints suggest that she's trying to come to terms with the self-consciousness of being a teenage girl. Her "skin has betrayed [her]," breaking out in pimples; she's stuck being "the one / wearing braces"; and she can't figure out why her "knees are / always so ashy." Puberty is doing a number on her, in other words: her body is changing, and she's horribly embarrassed about all the ways in which she feels it's wrong.
She's self-conscious in deeper ways, too. Melodramatically imagining that she might "die before graduation," she frets that the people at her funeral will "finally / tell the truth about [her]," a truth she feels certain must be terrible (or at least humiliating).
Even as she wrestles with these typical adolescent embarrassments, the speaker also finds herself encountering serious adult concerns. When she complains that "I should have been on Math Team / my marks were better than his," she sounds childishly petulant. But she's also noticing a serious problem: a boy who's not as good as her has been chosen over her. She's starting to grasp how a sexist world is going to treat her.
And over and over, she nervously observes that "momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed." Something mysterious is wrong with her mother at home, and while she's old enough to notice it, she's not quite old enough to figure out what could be happening behind that closed door.
Being a teenage girl, the poem suggests, means finding oneself facing a whole new world of new problems—and not quite having the resources to sift through them or manage them yet. This poem's speaker knows that she can't stay a kid; her "room is too small" for her already. But she's also "Hanging Fire" (or holding back), looking at all the trials of adulthood with a skeptical, dismayed eye.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-35
-
Womanhood and Sexism
This poem's speaker is a teenage girl getting her first real glimpse of what it is to be a woman. And from where she stands, womanhood doesn't look so great. Through this poem's sympathetic portrait of a teenager's worries, Audre Lorde quietly makes the point that sexism lands heavily on young girls when they're little more than children.
Most of the new troubles the poem's 14-year-old speaker finds herself facing have to do with how the outside world sees her. Suddenly self-conscious, she frets about her skin, her clothes, her braces, whether she knows how to dance the right way, and what other people might say about her if they told the truth. And while a lot of those concerns might be those of a teenager of any gender, the speaker's heavy focus on looks suggests that becoming a teenage girl means becoming suddenly aware that you're meant to be good-looking (or else!). The speaker's dramatic declaration that her "skin has betrayed her" by breaking out suggests that she's entering a world in which whether she has pimples or not feels like a profoundly serious matter.
Alongside a general pressure to look good comes a more overt discrimination against women and girls. When the speaker complains that "I should have been on Math Team / my marks were better than his," she's noticing that a boy who's not as skilled as she is has been chosen over her. While this is happening in a childish context—getting on the school Math Team—it's also a straightforward wallop of the adult world's sexism.
Perhaps the most ominous sign of what's to come, from the speaker's perspective, is that "momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed." In this image, the speaker's mother—her closest and clearest example of what it's going to be like to be a grown woman—is locked away in mysterious suffering. Such suffering, the poem hints, might be part of what womanhood means in a sexist world.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2
- Lines 6-7
- Lines 10-11
- Lines 12-13
- Lines 22-23
- Line 27
- Lines 28-31
- Lines 34-35
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Hanging Fire”
-
Lines 1-5
I am fourteen ...
... in secretAt the beginning of "Hanging Fire," the poem's speaker introduces herself with these comically hyperbolic words:
I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed meBecoming 14, readers gather, has meant new and unexpected problems for this young speaker—and ones that she feels deeply. Her skin hasn't just broken out in a few zits, no: it has cruelly "betrayed" her. Until recently, this over-the-top personification suggests, her skin was her friend, or at least just something she didn't have to think about. Now her own body has turned on her.
She's got other troubles, too. She has a crush, a "boy [she] cannot live without." But, awkwardly, she knows that he "still sucks his thumb / in secret." She has to admit that, really, her dreamboat is not much more than a baby. Neither is she. Both of them are stuck in the uncomfortable place between childhood and adulthood. The poem's title, "Hanging Fire," suggests exactly this kind of uneasy in-between-ness: to "hang fire" means to hold back or be delayed.
This speaker might really want to hang fire, to hold off on the next steps of her life. As this funny, poignant poem will explore, moving forward into all the troubles and mysteries of womanhood might look pretty unpleasant to a person who was only recently a little kid. Unfortunately for the speaker, there's no getting out of growing up.
Audre Lorde captures her speaker's voice in free verse, without a regular rhyme scheme or meter. This choice helps to make her speaker's voice sound naturalistic: it's as if readers can listen in on this young girl's fretful, circling thoughts.
-
Lines 6-11
how come my ...
... the door closed. -
Lines 12-18
I have to ...
... truth about me -
Lines 19-23
There is nothing ...
... the door closed. -
Lines 24-31
Nobody even stops ...
... to wear tomorrow -
Lines 32-35
will I live ...
... the door closed.
-
-
“Hanging Fire” Symbols
-
The Closed Door
The closed door behind which the speaker's mother sits symbolically suggests the mysterious world of adult womanhood. From the young speaker's point of view, that world looks pretty ominous. She anxiously observes again and again that "momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed"—a fact that clearly suggests something is wrong. But whatever is going on with the speaker's mother, the speaker isn't quite old enough to get it yet: her mother's problems are hidden beyond the threshold of adulthood, which the speaker hasn't yet passed. She just knows she's going to have to, one day soon, whether she likes it or not.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 10-11: “and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed.”
- Lines 22-23: “and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed.”
- Lines 34-35: “and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed.”
-
-
“Hanging Fire” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Refrain
This poem's teenage speaker has a lot of different worries. But one seems to nag at her more than others. Over and over, at the end of every stanza, the poem returns to her biggest concern in a refrain:
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.The speaker knows that something's wrong when her mother goes into the bedroom and shuts the door behind her. She just doesn't know what's wrong. Her mother's mysterious troubles, recurring across the poem, become the poem's emotional heart.
The 14-year-old speaker—still barely more than a child—is discovering all the difficulties of being a woman. She's self-conscious about how she looks and how people think about her, and she's becoming aware that boys are sometimes treated better than she is simply because they're boys (as when she notices that "my marks were better" than those of a boy who got picked for "Math Team" over her). The image of her mother hiding behind a closed bedroom door hints that she's just beginning to understand the kinds of problems that women have to deal with.
Readers might imagine that any number of different things are wrong with the speaker's mother: perhaps she's sad, perhaps she's angry, perhaps she's unwell. But a big part of the problem for the speaker is that, while she knows that something is up, she doesn't know what. She's not quite old enough to guess what her mother might be going through. And (as the urgently repeated refrain suggests) she's still young enough that whatever's going on with her mother is a matter of urgent daily importance to her.
The refrain thus feels poignant. The speaker is still just a kid in a lot of ways, very worried about what might be wrong with her mom. But she's also well on her way to getting behind the closed bedroom door of womanhood, symbolically speaking.
Where refrain appears in the poem:- Lines 10-11: “and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed.”
- Lines 22-23: “and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed.”
- Lines 34-35: “and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed.”
-
Juxtaposition
-
Colloquialism
-
Hyperbole
-
-
"Hanging Fire" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Hanging Fire
- Ashy
-
(Location in poem: )
To "hang fire" means to hold off on doing something or making a decision. In the context of this poem, the speaker seems to be "hanging fire" between childhood and womanhood, stuck in the uncomfortable in-between place of adolescence.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Hanging Fire”
-
Form
"Hanging Fire," like much of Audre Lorde's poetry, is written in free verse, without a regular form, meter, or rhyme scheme. In this particular poem—a dramatic monologue, written in the voice of a particular character—these stylistic choices help to make the teenage speaker's voice sound vivid, lifelike, and funny. Readers might feel that they're getting a peek into her fretful thoughts.
The poem uses three stanzas of similar length, 11-12 lines long apiece. Each is built from a list of complaints and worries, all ending with the same refrain: "and momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed." The regularity of these stanzas—all about the same length, all dealing with the same sorts of problems, all coming back to the same central big problem—help to suggest that the poor speaker can't get away from her teenage anxieties. Her litany of worries and complaints just goes round and round. And she can't stop uneasily returning to the mystery of what's wrong with her mother.
The poem's naturalistic form might help readers to feel both amused and sympathetic as they listen in on the speaker's thoughts. Some of her worries feel comically hyperbolic: she's probably not going to "die before morning." But the intensity with which she lists her fears—and especially her circling, repetitive worries about her mother—suggests that she's really suffering.
-
Meter
Rather than sticking to a particular meter, "Hanging Fire" uses flexible free verse to capture the voice of its teenage speaker. This choice helps to make the speaker's voice sound poignantly, comically natural.
A big part of that effect comes from Lorde's use of enjambments. Sudden mid-sentence line breaks make it sound as if the speaker is describing her woes with slow, melodramatic seriousness. Take lines 28-30, for instance:
why do I have to be
the one
wearing bracesThe enjambments here stretch out the speaker's dreadful revelation—she has to have braces, oh woe!—at comical length.
Lorde's enjambments also help to create a strong, punchy rhythm. The contrast between short, declarative lines like "I am fourteen" and the drawn-out irritability of longer lines like "I should have been on Math Team" captures the young speaker's range of feeling: sometimes melodramatic, sometimes small and nervous.
-
Rhyme Scheme
There's no rhyme scheme in this free verse poem. The lack of rhyme, like the lack of a regular meter, helps to make the speaker's voice sound like a real teenager's. It's as if readers are listening in on her anxious, sometimes melodramatic thoughts.
While there's no consistent pattern of rhyme here, there are a few chiming sounds—as in lines 12-18, for example:
I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
suppose I die before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth about meThe long /ee/ sound running through the words at the end of these lines isn't quite rhyme. But it does create a subtle assonance that might reflect the speaker's anxiety: that /ee/ sound feels a little like a thin whine!
-
-
“Hanging Fire” Speaker
-
The poem's speaker is a 14-year-old Black girl facing a range of small (and not-so-small) adolescent catastrophes, from bad skin to life's general unfairness to life's more specific unfairness to women. The different kinds of things that she notices and complains about help to suggest the pain and the humor of being a teenage girl, not long out of childhood and fearfully eyeing the mysterious world of womanhood.
In some ways, this speaker is full of comical adolescent angst, whining "why do I have to be / the one / wearing braces" and worrying that everyone will "tell the truth about [her]" at her funeral if she "die[s] before graduation" (a terrible, embarrassing truth, no doubt!). She's enormously self-conscious, concerned about her pimples and her "ashy" (or dry and grey) knees.
She's also coming to terms with bigger and more serious problems of becoming a woman. She notices, for instance, that a boy whose grades weren't as good as hers nevertheless got chosen for "Math Team" over her—certainly not the last time she's going to be hurt by sexism in her life. And she knows that something is wrong with her mother: over and over, she notices that "momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed" again.
But the speaker also sometimes uses the voice of a ruefully amused adult observer remembering what it was like to be 14. When she observes that "the boy I cannot live without / still sucks his thumb / in secret," for instance, she sounds a lot like an older person chuckling over the fact that one's 14-year-old dreamboat might still have been not much more than a baby.
-
-
“Hanging Fire” Setting
-
Though the speaker of "Hanging Fire" doesn't describe her surroundings very specifically, her voice gives readers a hint of where and when she's growing up. She worries about "wearing braces" and being picked for "Math Team," she gets invited to dance parties, she calls her mother "momma": she seems likely to be a young American girl growing up sometime in the mid-20th century. Readers might imagine that she's a teenager from around 1978, the year Audre Lorde published The Black Unicorn (the collection in which this poem first appeared). Or they might imagine that she gives voice to Lorde's memories of being a teenager in the late 1940s.
Readers might also guess that the speaker is lying in bed, listening to her worries circle through her head. She imagines what will happen if she "die[s] / before morning," gripes that her "room is too small," and frets that she has "nothing to wear tomorrow." But there's no detail about what her room is like or where exactly it might be.
The lack of detail in the setting helps to make this poem feel timeless. Though teenage girls in different times and places might have different versions of this speaker's troubles, perhaps they all share her central problem: dealing with the idea that they're going to have to become women, in spite of the fact that they're still not much more than children. And as the speaker's nervous observation that "momma's in the bedroom / with the door closed" suggests, womanhood will be full of its own mysterious problems.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Hanging Fire”
-
Literary Context
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) was a powerhouse, a force for change within and beyond the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and '70s. Like the Harlem Renaissance poets of the 1920s and '30s, the writers of the Black Arts Movement sought to move away from European literary conventions and toward new forms based on Black history and culture. Poets such as Lorde, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Amiri Baraka introduced blues and jazz rhythms into their work and focused on writing for Black audiences rather than the White literati.
Lorde brought a vitalizing voice to the Black Arts Movement. A Black lesbian feminist, she insisted that all her life was fair game for her art, writing boldly of her experiences even when her squeamish publishers tried to persuade her to gloss over her sexuality. She would eventually collaborate with the writer Barbara Smith to found Kitchen Table Press, a small publishing house dedicated to giving Black women writers a home for work that was being ignored elsewhere (and to rescuing the neglected works of writers like Zora Neale Hurston).
"Hanging Fire" was first collected in Lorde's 1978 book The Black Unicorn. Through this poem's mixture of tongue-in-cheek humor and real sadness, Lorde explores what it's like to be a young Black girl struggling with a mixture of normal adolescent woes and serious grown-up concerns (and observes that the world is not particularly kind or welcoming to teenage girls).
Lorde's work continues to inspire countless women (especially queer Black women) to find their voices despite the obstacles they face.
Historical Context
Lorde was born in Harlem, New York, in 1934. She grew up during the Great Depression, and as she came of age, the Civil Rights Movement was just beginning to grip the United States. The Women's Liberation movement soon followed. Lorde took part in the protests against racial and sexual discrimination that were occurring all across the country, and in the 1960s she became an important figure in both literary and activist spaces.
These spaces, however, were often co-opted by White women who did not experience the same kind of oppression as Black women. White women suffered from sexism, but Black women suffered from racism, too—including the racism of White feminists. Unfortunately (and not unironically), Lorde was often treated poorly by White feminist academics, accused of being too radical for her own good.
Lorde's own experiences as a Black lesbian shaped her influential theory of intersectionality: the idea that people’s intersecting identities (including their race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and so on) impact their lives in overlapping and complicated ways. Lorde asserted that, for instance, a White woman is bound to have different experiences of oppression from a Black woman, just as a straight, cis, wealthy, thin, or able-bodied woman is going to have a different experience of oppression than a woman who is queer, trans, poor, fat, or disabled. Intersectional feminism stresses how important it is to understand that the most marginalized of people face multiple forms of oppression at the same time.
In Lorde's view, Black liberation was thus inextricably tied to the liberation of other marginalized groups—and as someone who sat at the intersection of a lot of those groups, she refused to disguise any part of her humanity. As she put it in her famous essay "There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression":
Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.
-
-
More “Hanging Fire” Resources
-
External Resources
-
An Interview with Lorde — Listen to a 1982 interview with Lorde.
-
A Portrait of Lorde — Take a look at a famous portrait of Lorde by the photographer Jack Mitchell.
-
Lorde's Life and Legacy — Read a short biography of Lorde prepared by the Audre Lorde Project, a community organizing center founded in Lorde's name.
-
More on Lorde — Visit the Poetry Foundation's page on Lorde to learn more about the poet's life and read more of her work.
-
Lorde's Legacy — Read a New York Times profile discussing Lorde's literary afterlife.
-
-
LitCharts on Other Poems by Audre Lorde
-
