"Heat", by Hilda Doolittle, is a poem that has many characteristics. But maybe the most important of all is the use of words to create strong images that allows the reader to almost feel what the speaker is feeling in the strong and hot weather. We do not know who this speaker is, or even where he/she is located; all we know is that it is somewhere tropical (mention of fruit falling from trees) and really hot. All throughout the poem we, as readers, can almost sense and touch the intense heat that is being mentioned, but never more so than when the author uses such words as "cut" and "rend". This is because usually, when we think of heat, we do not think about something that could be so strong as to almost seem solid. But in this poem, the poet gives us the image of something that is almost tangible and visible, so solid that it can be manipulated and changed through "cutting" and "rendering". This is why the correct answer is C: They create a mental picture of heat so intense that it feels like something that can be physically torn.
