Identification of American Poetry
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AP English Literature and Composition › Identification of American Poetry
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
Who wrote the poem from which these lines are excerpted?
Robert Frost
Edgar Allan Poe
Emily Dickinson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Explanation
“Mending Wall,” published in 1914, is one of Frost’s better known works. The poem is written in blank verse and discusses a dispute between two neighbors about the necessity of a fence between their properties.
Passage adapted from "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost in Modern American Poetry (ed. Untermeyer, 1919)
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
Who wrote the poem from which these lines are excerpted?
Robert Frost
Edgar Allan Poe
Emily Dickinson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau
Explanation
“Mending Wall,” published in 1914, is one of Frost’s better known works. The poem is written in blank verse and discusses a dispute between two neighbors about the necessity of a fence between their properties.
Passage adapted from "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost in Modern American Poetry (ed. Untermeyer, 1919)
This American poet was heralded as the leader of the Beats and had his epic poem “Howl” subjected to an obscenity trial in the 1950s.
Allen Ginsberg
William Carlos Williams
e. e. cummings
Gertrude Stein
Adrienne Rich
Explanation
The poet in question is Allen Ginsberg, a leading figure in the counterculture movement. His most famous work, “Howl,” gave voice to previously unheard minorities and spoke against war, materialism, consumerism, homophobia, and various forms of repression. Its opening lines are frequently quoted, although “Howl” was often censored because of its depictions of homosexual and heterosexual sex acts.
This American poet was heralded as the leader of the Beats and had his epic poem “Howl” subjected to an obscenity trial in the 1950s.
Allen Ginsberg
William Carlos Williams
e. e. cummings
Gertrude Stein
Adrienne Rich
Explanation
The poet in question is Allen Ginsberg, a leading figure in the counterculture movement. His most famous work, “Howl,” gave voice to previously unheard minorities and spoke against war, materialism, consumerism, homophobia, and various forms of repression. Its opening lines are frequently quoted, although “Howl” was often censored because of its depictions of homosexual and heterosexual sex acts.
Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
This stanza is from a poem by which poet?
Edgar Allan Poe
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert Frost
Emily Dickinson
William Cullen Bryant
Explanation
This poem is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells.” Known also for his short fiction, much of which has a macabre tone and a preoccupation with human mortality, Poe wrote “The Bells” with the aid of literary devices such as onomatopoeia, metaphor, and diacope. It was published posthumously.
Hear the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
This stanza is from a poem by which poet?
Edgar Allan Poe
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert Frost
Emily Dickinson
William Cullen Bryant
Explanation
This poem is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells.” Known also for his short fiction, much of which has a macabre tone and a preoccupation with human mortality, Poe wrote “The Bells” with the aid of literary devices such as onomatopoeia, metaphor, and diacope. It was published posthumously.
Which modernist poet wrote “Baseball and Writing,” “He Made This Screen,” and “Poetry”?
Marianne Moore
John Dos Passos
Anne Sexton
Frank O’Hara
Mary Oliver
Explanation
Marianne Moore, who won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, is noted for her innovations and irony in her poems. She often eschewed formal meter and used animal motifs and interesting language to develop her themes, and she was known for criticizing the institution of poetry (as in her poem "Poetry").
Which modernist poet wrote “Baseball and Writing,” “He Made This Screen,” and “Poetry”?
Marianne Moore
John Dos Passos
Anne Sexton
Frank O’Hara
Mary Oliver
Explanation
Marianne Moore, who won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, is noted for her innovations and irony in her poems. She often eschewed formal meter and used animal motifs and interesting language to develop her themes, and she was known for criticizing the institution of poetry (as in her poem "Poetry").
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Who wrote this poem?
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Edgar Allan Poe
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anne Bradstreet
Explanation
This is the opening of Walt Whitman’s beautiful “Song of Myself,” taken from Leaves of Grass (1855). The poem is said to represent the heart of Whitman’s poetic vision and be inspired by the Transcendentalist movement, although it was initially criticized for its raw, uncensored depictions of human sexuality.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and
their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Who wrote this poem?
Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Edgar Allan Poe
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Anne Bradstreet
Explanation
This is the opening of Walt Whitman’s beautiful “Song of Myself,” taken from Leaves of Grass (1855). The poem is said to represent the heart of Whitman’s poetic vision and be inspired by the Transcendentalist movement, although it was initially criticized for its raw, uncensored depictions of human sexuality.