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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. On page 23 of "Run'n'Gun," the speaker says, "we became coyotes and rivers." What technique is being used in this line?

2. What does the opening of "Postcolonial Love Poem" claim that moonstones can do?

3. In "Run'n'Gun," what causes the speaker's older brother's game to deteriorate?

4. What technique is used in "American Arithmetic" in the page 17 line "O, mine efficient country"?

5. In "These Hands, If Not Gods," the speaker makes a reference to the "hundred-handed ones." Who were these figures?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Catching Copper," what is the significance of the page 11 lines ,"My brothers feed their bullet/ the way the bulls fed Zeus"?

2. In "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word," what dark joke does the speaker make about reparations?

3. In "Like Church," what claim is made about what whites compare Native people to?

4. In "Wolf OR-7," what is significant about the wolf in the poem's title?

5. In "Wolf OR-7," what metaphor is employed in the section of the poem where the speaker claims, "Some things cannot be charted" (32)?

6. In "From the Desire Field," what seems to make the speaker feel better, and to what does she point as a possible, eventual cure for her sleeplessness?

7. What play on the word "race" is used in "American Arithmetic"?

8. In what way does the page 1 opening line of "Postcolonial Love Poem," ("I've been taught bloodstones can cure a snakebite") center the Mojave worldview?

9. What is the setting of "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word"?

10. In "Like Church," what is the literal claim about the speaker's window and what is its figurative significance?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose a poem we did not specifically discuss in class. Write an explication of this poem, explaining how its techniques create its meaning. At least some of your evidence should be quoted, and if you require outside sources to understand allusions, etc., be sure to cite your sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that takes and defends a position about the use of religious language, iconography, and concepts in Postcolonial Love Poem. Use textual evidence from at least five separate poems to support your claims.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay that explores the complexity with which relationships are portrayed in Postcolonial Love Poem. Comment on both family and romantic relationships in your analysis, and provide support from at least five of the collection's poems.

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