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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," why does the speaker take her brother's call?
(a) Because she thinks that it is someone else calling.
(b) Because he might be in danger.
(c) Because he will keep calling until she does.
(d) Because she wants to tell him about the cranes.

2. In "The Cure for Melancholy Is to Take the Horn," what creature's horn is referenced in the poem's epigraph?
(a) Narwhal.
(b) Rhinocerous.
(c) Bull.
(d) Unicorn.

3. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," the speaker describes something as "Maenad." What is this a reference to?
(a) King Menelaus's wife.
(b) Orpheus's wife.
(c) Demeter's daughter.
(d) Dionysus's female followers.

4. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," what techniques are employed in the line "Swing switch sway. Hold the day away a little" (37)?
(a) Alliteration and internal rhyme.
(b) Internal rhyme and onomatopoeia.
(c) Onomatopoeia and blank verse.
(d) Blank verse and alliteration.

5. In "I, Minotaur," the speaker uses the word "Minotauromachy." Where does this word come from?
(a) A Keats poem about a Grecian artifact.
(b) A work by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.
(c) A Shakespearean play.
(d) The contemporary YA series The Hunger Games.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "The First Water Is the Body," what city's water crisis is specifically mentioned?

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

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

4. In "Ode to the Beloved's Hips," why are pears, apples, and figs specifically mentioned?

5. What question does the speaker ask on page 81, near the end of "If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert"?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "How the Milky Way Was Made," what does the speaker say about Coyote?

2. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," what story does the rock painting tell, and what is its significance to the speaker?

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

4. What two conceits are central to "If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert"?

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

6. 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)?

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

8. In what two senses can the title "My Brother, My Wound" be interpreted?

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

10. In "Waist and Sway," what temptation is the speaker trying to resist, and what is the outcome?

(see the answer keys)

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