Read the excerpt from “How I Learned English.” It was in an empty lot Ringed by elms and fir and honeysuckle. Bill Corson was pi
tching in his buckskin jacket, Chuck Keller, fat even as a boy, was on first, His t-shirt riding up over his gut, Ron O’Neill, Jim, Dennis, were talking it up In the field, a blue sky above them Tipped with cirrus. And there I was, Just off the plane and plopped in the middle Of Williamsport, Pa. and a neighborhood game, Unnatural and without any moves, My notions of baseball and America Growing fuzzier each time I whiffed. Which detail from this excerpt helps readers determine that the poem is written from a first-person point of view? the description of the speaker as “unnatural” the description of the boys “talking it up” the use of the words “I” and “my” the use of the words “his” and “them”
The first-person point of view lets the audience feel a connection with the narrator and acknowledge his emotions, ideas and motifs. It uses of words like <em>I, me, mine </em>and <em>my</em>.
In the passage from "How I Learned English," the author Gregory Djanikian describes a scene in which the narrator and other boys are playing baseball. He feels that he cannot play baseball well because he has just emigrated from Egypt and is not familiar with the game. As a result, the first-person point of view allows readers to see that he feels as an outsider, even though the children help him and enjoy hanging around with him.
