The emotions and reactions surrounding a house fire is one that would
be difficult to express to people who haven't experienced it for
themselves. Year after year you would hear in the news about house fires and never would ever predict it would happen to you or anyone. In the poem, "Remembering Fire" Rodney Jones does an excellent job of bringing the reader to a common understanding about
the sensations that arise before, during, and after a fire of one's
home. Through his writing technique, much imagery, unique language
patterns, and emotional effects, Jones is successful in portraying an adults personal view on a past life experience that could have been a child's exceptional view on the loss of his home.
By using a backwards technique, Jones can accomplish a more emotional
response from the reader. It begins with the title, "Remembering Fire" meaning that the narrator is going back in time to explain what happened in his childhood. In the first section of the poem, the
backwards technique proves to be literal, as he writes, "the eggs run
and leap back into their shells," and "the emptied bottles are filled."
The narrator is expressing what the fire has made him feel about life
in general; that you can't go back and change things that are in the
past. By the second section the narrator is standing on a hillside
seeing his house as it were before the fire and during the fire. By
the last section of the poem, Jones has created a sense of
anticipation. As the story of the house burning down comes together,
the reader is finally told the beginning, right at the end. In fact,
it is really only at the end, that the reader can fully understand the
beginning of the poem. By organizing the poem into the three different
sections, which are each written with a distinct style, the writer is
...