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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In "Skin-Light," what is the most likely antecedent of "it" in the line "My whole life I have obeyed it" (21)?
(a) This "god-made place."
(b) The "glide of the hand."
(c) "Skin-Light."
(d) "The opened-gold field."

2. In "Asterion's Lament," to what is the beloved's body compared besides water?
(a) A maze.
(b) A desert.
(c) A palace.
(d) A garden.

3. In "Catching Copper," what technique is used in the strophe about the brothers dancing, on page 10, when the dance "The worm" is mentioned?
(a) Double entente.
(b) Sarcasm.
(c) Anthropomorphism.
(d) Oxymoron.

4. In "These Hands, If Not Gods," the speaker makes a reference to the "hundred-handed ones." Who were these figures?
(a) The ancient potters who created human beings.
(b) The wise women who control fate.
(c) The giant offspring of Sky and Earth.
(d) The monsters that guard the gates of the underworld.

5. In "Asterion's Lament," the speaker talks about "the slake of a monster's appetite" (28). What does "slake" mean in this context?
(a) Satisfaction.
(b) Enormity.
(c) Crumbling away.
(d) Danger.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Manhattan Is a Lenape Word," what does the speaker claim to do with her "mouth of smoke" (14)?

2. In "Ink-Light," to what does the speaker compare her desire?

3. In "Blood-Light," what is the speaker imagining with the words, "Don't you want a little light in your belly?"

4. According to "American Arithmetic," what percentage of the U.S. population is Native American?

5. In "These Hands, If Not Gods," the speaker refers to "Atman." Which idea is this Hindu concept related most closely to?

Short Essay Questions

1. What relationship exists between the title "Postcolonial Love Poem" and the line, "I learned Drink in a country of drought" (1)?

2. In "From the Desire Field," what is the "desire field," and why does the speaker find herself there?

3. To whom is the speaker alluding in the third strophe of "These Hands, If Not Gods," when she mentions "a sin worth hurting for" (7), and how does the reader know this?

4. What play on the word "race" is used in "American Arithmetic"?

5. In "Catching Copper," what is the significance of the page 11 lines ,"My brothers feed their bullet/ the way the bulls fed Zeus"?

6. What is the main point being made in "American Arithmetic"?

7. In "Ink-Light," how are colors used to shift the poem's tone?

8. In "Like Church," what is the literal claim about the speaker's window and what is its figurative significance?

9. In "They Don't Love You Like I Love You," why does the speaker mention Beyoncé and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?

10. In "The Mustangs," how are mustangs used symbolically?

(see the answer keys)

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