Please write your name on the back of the test packet only.

 

Introduction to Literature                                                                              Poetry Test

 

I.                    DEFINITIONS

Match the terms below to their definitions by writing the correct letters in the spaces at the left (2 points each).

_____anaphora             A.  stanza containing two lines

_____hyperbole                        B.  stanza containing four lines

_____image                 C.  comparison using like or as

_____sonnet                 D.  comparison not using like or as

_____metaphor                        E.  poem written in paragraph form

_____open form           F.  fourteen line poem usually on love

_____personification     G.  nineteen line poem with a pattern of repeating refrains

_____prose poem         H.  mental picture or other sensory detail

_____quatrain              I.   intentional exaggeration

_____simile                  J.   repetition of words at the beginnings of successive lines

                                          K.  inexact rhyme

                   L.  lacking a set rhythm, rhyme scheme, or stanza form

                                    M.  repetition of initial consonants

                   N.  attributing human characteristics to something that isn’t

human

 

II.  MY FAVORITE POEM   Write a couple of sentences about your favorite poem from our textbook, including the author and title and telling why you like it (10 points).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

II.                 IDENTIFICATIONS

For each quotation identify the author and title and explain the importance of the quotation.  (4 points each; one point for the author, one for the title, and two for the quotation’s importance)  SKIP ONE (or I will count the last one as the one you skipped).

 

No matter who lives

or who dies, I'm still a woman.

I'll always have plenty to do.

I bring the arms of his shirt

together. Nothing can stop

our tenderness.

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

Margaret, are you grieving

Over Goldengrove unleaving

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

Ash, ash—

You poke and stir.

Flesh, bone, there is nothing there—

 

A cake of soap,

A wedding ring,

A gold filling.

 

Herr god, Herr Lucifer

Beware

Beware.

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—

her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation

To produce my foot, my each feather:

Now I hold Creation in my foot

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

What did I know, what did I know

of love's austere and lonely offices?

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,

Please let me know beforehand,

And I will come out to meet you,

As far as Cho-fu-Sa.

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

Rowing in Eden

Ah, the Sea!

Might I but moor — tonight –

In Thee!

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

The piercing chill I feel:

   my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom,

      under my heel . . .

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed

Still clinging to your shirt.

 

author

 

title

 

importance

 

 

IV.  ESSAYS   Discuss ONE or TWO of the poems below (30 points for one long

essay of at least two pages in length or 15 points each for two essays, each at least a page long.).  I am looking not for one right answer but a thorough discussion of the poem or poems you select.  Writing errors count against you, so write and proofread carefully. 

Guidelines:  Discuss both the form and meaning of each poem you choose.  Explain what the poem means and relate aspects of the poem’s form to its meaning.  Use terms you’ve learned in this class.  Include quotations from the poem in your analysis.  Writing well will help your score.

 

Facing It      Yusef Komunyakaa

 

      My black face fades,

      hiding inside the black granite.

      I said I wouldn't,

      dammit: No tears.

      I'm stone. I'm flesh.

      My clouded reflection eyes me

      like a bird of prey, the profile of night

      slanted against morning. I turn

      this way--the stone lets me go.

      I turn that way--I'm inside

      the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

      again, depending on the light

      to make a difference.

      I go down the 58,022 names,

      half-expecting to find

      my own in letters like smoke.

      I touch the name Andrew Johnson;

      I see the booby trap's white flash.

      Names shimmer on a woman's blouse

      but when she walks away

      the names stay on the wall.

      Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's

      wings cutting across my stare.

      The sky. A plane in the sky.

      A white vet's image floats

      closer to me, then his pale eyes

      look through mine. I'm a window.

      He's lost his right arm

      inside the stone. In the black mirror

      a woman's trying to erase names:

      No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

 

Buffalo Bill’s                             ee cummings

 

Buffalo Bill’s

defunct

            who used to

            ride a watersmooth-silver

                                                     stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                                                 Jesus

he was a handsome man

                                       and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

 

 

Lonely Hearts               Wendy Cope

 

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Male biker seeks female for touring fun.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

 

Gay vegetarian whose friends are few,

I'm into music, Shakespeare and the sun.

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

 

Executive in search of something new—

Perhaps bisexual woman, arty, young.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

 

Successful, straight and solvent? I am too—

Attractive Jewish lady with a son.

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

 

I'm Libran, inexperienced and blue—

Need slim non-smoker, under twenty-one.

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

 

Please write (with photo) to Box 152

Who knows where it may lead once we've begun?

Can someone make my simple wish come true?

Do you live in North London? Is it you?

The Negro Speaks of Rivers    Langston Hughes

 

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of

       human blood in human veins.

 

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

 

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to

        New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the

        sunset.

 

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

 

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.