Analysis of "Hair on Fire" by Jim Daniels

Poem found here: "Hair on Fire" by Jim Daniels

The adjusted lines foreshadows that things changing from one side to another.  On one side, the idealization of youth through very specific images; but on the other side, there is the, no so much the reality, but a shift on how the images differ with age and/or time.

The beginning there's arts and crafts that the all encompassing we does:

• ironed fall leaves between wax-paper sheets
• melted crayons into candles
• Kool-aid into popsicles

For me, it's interesting to see that the images themselves transform into one state to another -- crayons to candle, liquid to solid.  There's a lot going on in the first few lines and images that work hard to convey a shift  I'm not sure what "cloves into oranges" mean but the next line of "We grew roots" brings attention to itself through the enjambment and directness which slips away with "on sweet potatoes tooth-picked in water.

At this point, the images are safe and maybe a bit saccharine, but this line, "We taped our broken glasses together / and shut up ."  Feels a bit sinister.  Like something's off -- like a repressed memory.  The rest of the images follow the pattern though:

• making shoe-box dioramas with Play-Doh and modeling clay
• make snowflakes from folded paper
• making newspaper kites and "imagined they could fly"

The part of the poem with "imagined they could fly" follows along with this kind of idealization or a sense of youthful thinking.  But there's something off for me.  I don't know how to explain the offness of the line.  A part of me thinks there's something sinister comes from it -- like expecting the fall from idealization, but I might be reading too much into the line.

In either case, this makes me look for something wrong in the second stanza.  For example, the opening lines, "We shaped tin foil into fake coins / for our church envelopes."  Although dishonest, this seems like a continuation of a childish experience -- giving fake coins to a church.   And this feeling of something is off continues with, "We covered love bites with Kool-Aid" in which the image of the Kool-Aid conjured in the beginning transforms into something that hides love bites -- maybe something more "teen" oriented like filling liquor bottles with holy water or hiding the stash in bean bag chairs.

But the line "We drove to Ohio for drugs / and rolled back our father's odometer" is specific and changes things to something teen oriented of not getting caught when buying drugs.   Every "growing up" experience becomes specific and laid out like "We mounted our girlfriends / on basement pool tables, clacking balls together / for ears upstairs."  Doing something more adult oriented, but always trying to not get caught.  Although the next two lines are more abstract, "We drew lies with chalk / and the truth with tar" the meaning of the title of the poem comes into play, "We lit our hair on fire / to cover the smell."

The smell of truth and lies, and also of growing up and not getting caught doing so.