Although Hanging Fire and We real cool are very divergent poems, their messages are homogeneous. Hanging Fire is about a fourteen year old girl who cares about what everyone thinks and wants to be cool but she has to face all of her fears alone as she repeatedly says “and momma’s in the bedroom with the door closed.” (Audre Lorde 897). On the other hand “We real cool” is about seven teenagers playing hooky in the middle of the day and they think they are cool. Everyone knows how teenagers can be, their self-image tis one of the most important things to him or her. Teenagers go through a phase were all they think about is being cool and what they can do to become popular.
