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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 could the tone of the Four Poems indicate about the poet?

2. What does the poem "Roosters" describe?

3. What type of language does Bishop employ in "Songs for a Colored Singer"?

4. How does Bishop tend to characterize a person's feelings and moods in the poems in North and South?

5. What are two things Bishop and Moore can do together, as described in "Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore"?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Bishop use humor in "Manners"?

2. In "Electrical Storm," why are the pearls twice described as dead?

3. What is the significance of the title of "The Prodigal"?

4. What is the significance of the trees capturing the music in "View of the Capitol from the Library of Congress"?

5. How are the poems in North and South devoted to morning different?

6. How does Bishop liken an iceberg to the soul in "The Imaginary Iceberg"?

7. Why does Bishop chose the word "flying" in "Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore"?

8. What is the meaning of the lines "I'm afraid if it's wheat it's none of your sowing" in "Letter to N.Y."?

9. How does the poet frame her journey in "Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance"?

10. How would you characterize the speaker's relationship to the title character in "Manuelzinho"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

"Letter to N.Y." and "Invitation to Miss Marianne Moore" are both letters to friends of the poet in poetic form. How do these poems differ from the others in the collection? Consider the reader's knowledge about the speaker, the level of intimacy, and in what person the poems are composed. What is the overall effect of these differences on the reader? Do you think it is appropriate for these letters to be considered poetry in the same league with the rest of the collection? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 2

Bishop employs a variety of different formats, including prose poetry, sonnets, and sestinas. Choose one example of each of these and discuss to what extent the format is a fitting approach for that particular poem. How would the poem's effect be different if it were presented differently? Discuss how it would be different in terms of its look on the page and the way it would sound. Would it be more or less effective, and why?

Essay Topic 3

Why do you think Bishop chose to translate the poems of other writers from a variety of places? How does this relate to what you've learned about Bishop as a writer and as a person from reading her own work? Were you surprised by any of the choices she made in terms of poets, poems, languages, or the specific choices she made in translating each poem? Do you think it is appropriate to include translations in a collection of Bishop's poems? In what ways are these poems her work, and in what ways are they the work of the original poet? How would your experience of the book have been different if the translations had been omitted?

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