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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 Soldiers Aim at Us,” what do the soldiers do to make the townspeople run away, so they can get Petya’s body?

2. What do the townspeople do when soldiers arrive back in the square to take Petya’s body?

3. What do the signs around town say is the danger of deafness?

4. How does Sonya die?

5. What is the purpose of “Dramatis Personae”?

Short Essay Questions

1. In “The Map of Bones and Open Valves,” what do Sonya and Alfonso sneak through the city doing? How do they feel about this?

2. What takes place in “Soldiers Aim at Us?”

3. In “4 a.m. Bombardment,” what is Alfonso doing?

4. In “Alfonso, in Snow,” what does the speaker say about himself?

5. In “Checkpoints” what do the soldiers set up around town and why?

6. What does Alfonso say about his and his wife’s bathing ritual?

7. What happens in “Arrival”?

8. In “The Townspeople Circle the Boy’s Body,” what do the townspeople do to protect Petya’s body?

9. What does the speaker say in “A Cigarette” about the townspeople?

10. In “Lullaby,” what does Alfonso say will protect his daughter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The story begins with Anushka as an unborn child and ends with her as a toddler. How does Anushka give the story a timeline and reveal to the readers the short amount of time in which the story takes place? Why might the poet have chosen to do this? How do these details affect the reader?

Essay Topic 2

The poet calls the puppeteers who murder the soldiers "beautiful women of Vasenka." What does the poet mean by this? How are they beautiful? Are their actions beautiful? Why or why not?

Essay Topic 3

The collection of poetry begins and ends with poems about the U.S. What is the subject matter of these poems? What is the purpose of the poems? How do they relate to the rest of the poems? Why might the poet have chosen to have them as bookends for his collection?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 795 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample