Bringing the Shovel Down Quiz

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Which collection was this poem published in? (from Lines 1 – 90)

Bringing the Shovel Down

Be Holding

The Book of Delights

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

Which is supposed to bring a sense of calm safety in the poem? (from Lines 1 – 90)

Max's steel cable

Groups of children

An upturned nest

Entwined bodies in bed

Which best summarizes the poem? (from Lines 1 – 90)

The speaker tells the beloved a story about a group of kids who convince a young boy that an old dog named Max is rabid. The boy kills Max and finds catharsis in the coming dawn.

The speaker tells the beloved a story about a group of kids who convince a young boy that an old dog named Max is rabid. The boy frees Max and finds catharsis in the coming dawn.

The speaker tells the beloved a story about a group of kids who convince a young boy that an old dog named Max is rabid. The boy frees Max and finds catharsis in the coming dawn, and the speaker brings details of this instance into the poem's present.

The speaker tells the beloved a story about a group of kids who convince a young boy that an old dog named Max is rabid. The boy kills Max and finds catharsis in the coming dawn, and the speaker brings details of this instance into the poem's present.

Why might the speaker be unreliable? (from Lines 1 – 90)

The speaker is disembodied because part of him or her is a machine inside the beloved's body.

The speaker is very much in love, and is lovesick as a result.

The speaker compares his or her own telling of the story to the "yarn" that the kids spin about Max.

The speaker is the boy in the story.

How does Gay bring the embedded narrative into the poem's present? (from Lines 1 – 90)

After killing Max, the boy picks raspberries. These same fruits can be found in the speaker's fridge inside a bowl made by the beloved.

The speaker reveals himself to be the boy in the story, and he has to confess to the beloved.

The kid in the story is the child of the speaker and the beloved.

The spade that the boy used to kill Max belonged to the speaker's grandfather.