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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. What vehicle is mentioned in the opening of "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word"?

2. In "Skin-Light," the speaker refers to "violet, biliruben/ bloom." What is she describing?

3. In "Asterion's Lament," what does the phrase, "Go forward, always down" represent (27)?

4. In "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word," what is the speaker's objection to her lover saying, "You make me feel like lightening" (15)?

5. In "Catching Copper," when the brothers are searching for their bullet, what sound is heard?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Run'n'Gun," what impresses the speaker about Clyde's basketball playing?

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

3. What relationship exists between the title "Postcolonial Love Poem" and the line, "I learned Drink in a country of drought" (1)?

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

5. What does the speaker mean in "They Don't Love You Like I Love You" when she says that she can see through maps?

6. In "Skin-Light," what is Teotlachco, and what is its significance in the poem?

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

8. In "Blood-Light," what do the scorpions represent, and how does the reader know this?

9. Explain the conceit introduced by the line, "I know another name for holy is water" in "Asterion's Lament" (27).

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about how the collection Postcolonial Love Poems connects personal and political issues. Use textual support from at least five poems in the collection in defense of your claim.

Essay Topic 2

Write an analysis of the function of scientific terms in the diction of Diaz's poetry. You may choose to focus your analysis on one poem or on several; be sure to use quoted evidence in support of your claims.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay that traces the development of the "hips" motif in Postcolonial Love Poem. Show how different poems develop differing aspects of this motif and make a claim about its overall meaning within the collection.

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