Name

Unit 3: Poetry Test

Multiple Choice: Read each question carefully and circle the correct answer. (2 points)
1. What is the speaker of a poem?
a. The person reading the poem
b. The voice that communicates with the reader
c. The character that the poem focuses on
d. An object that is emphasized in the poem
2. A stanza is
a. A horizontal row of words
b. The entire poem
c. A group of sections of words
d. A group of lines forming a unit
3. The pattern of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a
line is
a. Rhythm
b. Rhyme
c. Time
d. Meter
4. Which literary element uses the word like or as to compare two seemingly unlike things?
a. Personification
b. Metaphor
c. Simile
d. Onomatopoeia
5. Which literary technique appeals to the senses and uses descriptive language to represent
objects, feelings, and thoughts?
a. Assonance
b. Imagery
c. Alliteration
d. Simile

Read the following lines from The Glory of the Day Was in Her Face by James Weldon
Johnson and answer question #6:

And in her voice, the calling of the dove;

Like music of a sweet melodious part.
And in her smile, the breaking light of love;
And all the gentle virtues in her heart.

6. Based on the passage, the word virtues most likely means

a. Timid qualities
b. Awkward qualities
c. Mean qualities
d. Admirable qualities
Read the following lines from Missing You by Shu Ting and answer questions #7-8:

Waiting buds in suspended animation;

The setting sun is watching from a distance.

7. Based on the lines above, the phrase suspended animation most likely means
a. Frozen in time
b. Full of energy
c. Nervously awaiting
d. Overjoyed and happy
8. The setting sun is watching uses which literary element:
a. Metaphor
b. Personification
c. Simile
d. Hyperbole

Read the following lines from First Lesson by Philip Booth and answer question #9:

Lie back, daughter, let your head

Be tipped back in the cup of my hand.

Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
Your arms wide, lie out on the stream
And look high at the gulls.

9. The tone of the lines above is

a. Stressful
b. Excited
c. Calm
d. Bored
Read the following lines from Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day? by William
Shakespeare and answer question #10:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May

And summers lease hath all too short a date.

10. According to the lines above, what is Shakespeare saying about summer?
a. It is his favorite season
b. It goes by too quickly
c. It will not come to an end
d. It the most beautiful time

Read the following lines from Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden and answer question
#11-12:
Speaking indifferently to him,
Who had driven out the cold
And polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

Of loves austere and lonely offices?

11. The narrators treatment of his father can be considered

a. Unappreciative
b. Vicious
c. Jealous
d. Outraged
12. In the last two lines, the narrator is criticizing himself for not understanding
a. That he wants to have his fathers job
b. The benefits of not having his father around
c. That his father valued money most of all
d. The sacrifices his father made for him

True/False: Read each statement carefully. If the statement is true place a T next to the
question. If the statement is false place a F next to the question. (1 point)
13. The narrator of One Perfect Rose by Dorothy Parker wonders why no one ever
sent her a limousine.
14. Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day? by William Shakespeare is a free
verse poem.
15. In Simile by N. Scott Momaday, the narrator compares herself and her love
interest to birds.
16. The narrator of Missing You by Shu Ting says that tears emerge from the ocean.
17. The narrator of When a Man Loves a Woman by C. Lewis and A. Wright is
willing to spend all his money on his love.
18. In Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden the narrators siblings thank their
father for all the hard work he does.
Matching: Place the letter of the poem title that corresponds with the lines listed. (1 point)
19. When in eternal lines to time thou growst.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

a. The Glory of the Day

Was in Her Face by
James Weldon Johnson

20. Hed give up all his comforts

And sleep out in the rain,
If she said thats the way it
Ought to be.
21. And now the glorious day, the beauteous night,
The birds that signal to their mates at dawn,
To my dull ears, to my tear-blinded sight
Are one with all the dead, since she is gone.
22. Id wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, hed call,
And slowly I would rise and dress,
Fearing the chronic angers of that house

b. Those Winter Days by

Robert Hayden

c. When a Man Loves a

Woman by C. Lewis and
A. Wright

d. Shall I Compare Thee to

a Summers Day? by
William Shakespeare

Constructed Response: Read each question carefully and respond in the appropriate space.
23. Read the poem First Lesson by Philip Booth. In one paragraph, explain the tone of
the poem using 2 examples from the text to support your claim. Write your answer in the
space beneath the poem. (2 points)
Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A deadman's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

#23 Response:

24. Read the poem Well, I Have Lost You; and I Lost You Fairly by Edna St. Vincent
Millay. In a paragraph, explain what event the narrator is describing. Give 2 examples
from the poem to support your interpretation of the narrators point of view. Write your
response in the space beneath the poem. (2 points)
Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.
Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.
If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.
Should I outlive this anguishand men do
I shall have only good to say of you.

#24 Response:

25. Read the poems Horses Graze by Gwendolyn Brooks and A Blessing by James
Wright. Write one paragraph comparing the poems and one contrasting them. Give 2
examples of similarities and 2 examples of differences between the poems. Write your
answer on the following page. (2 points)
Horses Graze
Cows graze.
Horses graze.
They
Eat
Eat
Eat.
Their graceful heads
Are bowed
Bowed
Bowed
In majestic oblivion
They are nobly oblivious
To your follies,
Your inflation,
The knocks and nettles of administration.
They
Eat
Eat
Eat.
And at the crest of their brute satisfaction,
With wonderful gentleness, in affirmation,
They lift their clean calm eyes and they lie down
And love the world.
They speak with their companions.
They do not wish that they were otherwhere.
Perhaps they know that creature feet may press
Only a few earth inches at a time,
That earth is anywhere earth,
That an eye may see,
Wherever it may be,
The Immediate arc, alone, of life, of love.
In Sweden,
China,
Afrika,
In India or Maine
The animals are sane;
They know and know and know
Theres ground below
And sky
Up high.

A Blessing
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their
happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each
other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in
the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long
ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girls wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

#25 Response: