Compare and contrast “hanging fire” by Audre Lorde, and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. I would suggest taking the poems and focusing on one theme (longing, for example. If you were to focus on longing your could examine how this theme shows up in both poems. What does the narrator of Hanging Fire long for? How do you know? Similarly, what does the narrator of “My Papa’s Waltz” long for? How do you know that from the words of the poem.
You can compare/contrast tone, and imagery as they apply to your theme. What imagery gives you a sense of loneliness, for example? In “Hanging Fire” it might be the closed door to the mother’s bedroom.
You can organize your paper based either on literary device (tone, imagery, symbols etc.) or on the individual poems themselves.
