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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 "Cranes, Mafiosos, and a Polaroid Camera," to what does the speaker compare the camera's aperture?

2. In "Top Ten Reasons Why Indians Are Good at Basketball," what kind of food is mentioned twice?

3. In "exhibits from The American Water Museum," whose admission price is "the kidneys" (64)?

4. In "Snake-Light," what does the speaker dream about?

5. In "That Which Cannot Be Stilled," what does the speaker "diagnose" herself and the reservation as?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. In "The First Water Is the Body," what specific concern does the speaker have about the Colorado River?

7. 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)?

8. In "It Was the Animals," what does the speaker's guest tell her the inscription is, and what is it in reality?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay in which you contrast the natural and the man-made in Postcolonial Love Poem. How are images and details in these two categories employed? In what contexts? What do they seem to signify? Consider these questions and any others that seem relevant as you defend a thesis that makes a claim about how the natural and man-made differ in this collection.

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay that analyzes the "wounds" motif in Postcolonial Love Poem. How do wounds function at both a literal and a symbolic level, and what positive function do poems in this collection seem to suggest wounds might serve? Be sure to support your analysis with evidence from at least five poems in the collection.

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay in which you defend, refute, or qualify the following statement: "Natalie Diaz's collection Postcolonial Love Poem celebrates the strength of Mojave culture." Be sure to support your claims with evidence from the text.

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