In Regina Barreca's poem, “Night Fires,” she uses many elements of poetry to help portray the theme of the poem. Poetry is all about how it is written. Poetry is short, so it tends to be much more complex than a novel. The poem uses many elements to help the reader fully understand what the poet's overall goal is. It is easy for the reader to enjoy this poem because it is easy to understand and can paint a great picture of the poem in the reader's mind by using such elements. “Night Fires” uses many elements such as: tone, image and rhetorical figures. The first element is tone. The tone of a poem is very important. It sets the mood for the reader. In “Night Fires” the reader may realize that the tone may be dark. If the reader first took the word night and we could understand that it will not be a bright, sunny and happy poem, because the night gives it a dark and sad atmosphere. Then we have the Fires; fires are usually not good, unless they are planned. When we see the word fire, we can say that it could light up this night. Once the title is over, Barreca begins with: “…we drove to see the night fires. Seven of us piled up, all in pajamas and with runny noses... we drove fast towards the smoke (Barreca).” The tone is now officially set. They're crammed into a car in their pajamas, so we know it wasn't meant to be. The tone seems a little rushed now. Not only are they all crammed into the car, but they are speeding down the road to get to this fire. Then we “woke up my mother, and she pushed and pushed us all to wake up (Barreca)”. Once again, it is becoming clear that this was not expected. Now, saying this tone is rushed doesn't mean it's scary. None of the words seem to show signs of fear, all... middle of paper ......come on, we can imagine the fire truck speeding through the streets, but also moving like a snake, navigating perfectly through the streets. Finally, at the end of the poem Barreca says: “eyes like corridors full of smoke (Barreca)”. Again, this is a great way to end the story, Barreca connects the overall theme of the poem to the last line of the story. The elements of the poem work very well together to help set the theme of this poem. The tone sets the overall mood of the poem, so it shows that it was rushed but not chaotic. The images help show us small details of the setting, which are very useful. And finally, the figures of speech help the reader compare the scene with things he has experienced in his life to fully understand the poem. Works Cited Barreca, Regina. "Night Fires". Meyer, Michael. Literature to go. nd. 361,362.