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Because the speaker of “Hanging Fire” spends much of the poem ruminating on her own insecurities, she doesn’t make many concrete references to time or place. In this regard, the poem could be said to take place primarily in the speaker’s anxiously racing mind. As a teenager, she’s at an age when she’s trying to figure out how to survive in an unjust and unfair world. It’s not especially surprising, then, that she’s caught up in her own head. 

In addition to this abstract sense of setting, there is one concrete reference to place in the poem. This single reference is significant given the fact that the speaker mentions it three times, in the refrain that concludes each of the poem’s three stanzas. In this refrain, the speaker mentions how her “momma’s in the bedroom / with the door closed” (lines 10–11; 22–23; and 34–35). These lines situate the speaker at home, expectantly waiting for her mother to open her bedroom door. The repetition of the refrain suggests that the speaker may even be anxiously circling back to check and double-check. Cut off from her mother, the speaker is left alone, lost in her own thoughts.

Next section Themes

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