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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. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what does the speaker say can "make you clean" (42)?

2. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," who is mentioned as having stolen the Creator's heart?

3. In "Grief Work," what does the speaker say she is giving up?

4. In "If I Should Come Upon Your House Lonely in the West Texas Desert," what does the speaker say her "lasso" is made of?

5. In "It Was the Animals," what technique is used in the description of the piece of the "ark" next to the speaker's coffee cup?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," what does the guidebook say?

2. In "The First Water Is the Body," what point does the speaker make about the limitations of words?

3. In "I, Minotaur," to what plant does the speaker compare herself, and why?

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

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

6. What is the setting of "Waist and Sway," and how is its setting unusual for this collection?

7. In "Isn't the Air Also a Body, Moving?" what leads the speaker to call the train caboose the best part of a train?

8. In "Grief Work," what is the symbolic significance of the poem's final sequence in which the speaker and her beloved are in the river?

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

10. 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)?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you defend, refute, or qualify the following thesis: "In Postcolonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz re-centers many types of marginalized identities." Be sure to support your thesis with evidence from throughout the collection.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that traces the development of the "bull" 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.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay that examines Diaz's use of structure and formatting. Choose one or more poems and create a thesis that makes a claim about her use of structure and formatting in your chosen poem(s). How does she use space on the page and linebreak to group ideas, control pace, and create emphasis? Be sure to support your ideas with textual evidence.

(see the answer keys)

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