Making Meanings
Fifteen/American Hero
First Thoughts
1. How do you think the writers of “Fifteen” and “American Hero” felt about the
conflicts that they made into poems?
Shaping Interpretations
2. How does the boy in “Fifteen” feel about the motorcycle? What lines convey that feeling? What have you experienced that allows you to understand his emotion?
3. What do you think the boy in “Fifteen” means in lines 11–12 when he says that he and the motorcycle could “meet the sky out on Seventeenth”? What else could “meet the sky” mean?
4. The writer uses “Fifteen” as the title of the poem, and the phrase “I was fifteen” as a refrain, or chorus. What is the significance of that number? Could it as well have been sixteen? How about twelve or eighteen?
5. The American hero in Hemphill’s poem says he has “nothing to lose tonight,” and “Everyone hollering / is a friend tonight.” What does this repetition of the word tonight suggest about tomorrow?
6. Look at the last five lines of “American Hero.” How has the speaker’s mood changed? What conflict is the speaker feeling now? What is he saying about his fans?
7. Hemphill structured his poem so that it has some long sentences and some short, staccato sentences. Analyze the poem to locate the long and short sentences. What action is described with the short sentences? Read the poem aloud to hear how the short sentences create a kind of tension.
Connecting with the Texts
8. Suppose you are the person who finds the motorcycle in “Fifteen.” The man who owns it calls you a good man or woman. Given what you were just thinking about doing, how does that make you feel?
9. If you had a chance to speak to the “American Hero,” what would you say?
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