Read the excerpt from “How I Learned English.”It was in an empty lotRinged by elms and fir and honeysuckle.Bill Corson was pitching 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 upIn the field, a blue sky above themTipped with cirrus.And there I was,Just off the plane and plopped in the middleOf Williamsport, Pa. and a neighborhood game,Unnatural and without any moves,My notions of baseball and AmericaGrowing 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?
Answer
A
the description of the speaker as “unnatural”
B
the description of the boys “talking it up”
C
the use of the words “I” and “my”
D
the use of the words “his” and “them”
Explanation
A first-person point of view is signaled when the narrator refers to themself as “I” or “me” and describes things as “my.” The excerpt includes “And there I was” and “My notions of baseball and America,” showing that the speaker is telling the story from their own perspective. The other choices describe the speaker or other boys but do not identify the point of view.
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