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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera," to what does the speaker compare the camera's aperture?
(a) An eye.
(b) A lake.
(c) A wound.
(d) A mouth.

2. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," what does the speaker say is the "first violence against any body of water" (64)?
(a) Polluting it.
(b) Becoming alienated from it.
(c) Damming it.
(d) Forgetting its original name.

3. In "The First Water Is the Body," what specific product's logo does the speaker mention?
(a) Calumet Baking Powder.
(b) Indian Motorcycle.
(c) Land O' Lakes Butter.
(d) Eskimo Pie.

4. In "My Brother, My Wound," to what does the speaker compare the light in the holes in the walls?
(a) Butterflies.
(b) Canaries.
(c) Yellow jackets.
(d) Stars.

5. In "I, Minotaur," what device is used in phrases like "love and what love becomes" and "appetite of your own appetite" (55)?
(a) Juxtaposition.
(b) Parallelism.
(c) Paradox.
(d) Metonymy.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "The First Water Is the Body," whom does the speaker call "The only red people I've ever seen" (46)?

2. In "The Cure for Melancholy Is to Take the Horn," what Russian-American poet is quoted?

3. In "Waist and Sway," what causes the beloved to have a "honeyed" appearance?

4. In "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera," how does the speaker's brother respond to her description of the cranes' dance?

5. In "Snake-Light," what does the speaker compare writing to?

Short Essay Questions

1. In the opening of "Snake-Light," what does the speaker literally see in the desert, and to what does she compare it?

2. Explain the metaphor "Transubstantiation bone--hips of bread,/ wine-whet thighs" in "Ode to the Beloved's Hips" (37).

3. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," what choice does the speaker say the Creator gave Indian peoples, and who chose each option?

4. In "My Brother, My Wound," how is light used metaphorically?

5. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what is the rhetorical function of the lines: "I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock, I-I wanna rock/ right now" (37)?

6. In "It Was the Animals," who comes to the speaker's house, and what is that person carrying?

7. In "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera," what does the speaker's brother request, and why?

8. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what metaphorical comparison is developed in the lines, "How many hours bowed against this Infinity of Blessed/ Trinity?" (37)?

9. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what happens when the speaker goes to the hospital for a panic attack?

10. In "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera," what does the speaker try to tell her brother about cranes, and what is its thematic significance?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 850 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample