Please read the directions carefully before beginning. Write on all three questions below. Each question. Use standard college-level formatting (12pt Times New Roman font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins), and be sure to number your responses according to the question numbers below within the file you submit. I have not set a strict page or word count: you should write as much as you need to answer the questions thoroughly and thoughtfully. However, I recommend that you write 1-2 pages (2 or 3 substantial paragraphs) in response to each question, so your full exam would be in the 5-6 page range.
Your thoughts should be organized into paragraphs that contain topic sentences. Each paragraph should follow logically from the one that came before it. Your answer should have a beginning, middle, and end, but not an elaborate introduction and conclusion – just jump right into answering the questions. Pay attention to grammar, spelling, usage, and style.
Good answers will always quote the texts in question. Because your responses are brief, I suggest citing short, exemplary phrases rather than long quotes. Pay attention to line breaks and mark them with a forward slash (“/”) in in-text citations (or reproduce them as they appear on the original page in a block quotation). Remember that if you’re citing more than three lines—measured by the poet’s line breaks, not the width of your own page—you need a block quotation. Titles of individual poems should be formatted in quotation marks; titles of books should be italicized.
There is no need to include outside biographical or critical information about the authors. If you do consult any outside sources, even if you are not quoting directly, you must cite them in a footnote or with a bibliographic entry.
INSTRUCTIONS:
You must respond to all three questions.
The questions lay out choices for each essay.
However, in your three essays, you must write about at least FOUR poets in total among the five we’ve read since the last exam. That means that you’re welcome to repeat a poet, writing about their work in more than one essay or focusing an essay on just their work, but in the exam as a whole, you’ll also need to demonstrate your range in writing about multiple authors. (You may also write about all five.):
Ocean Vuong
Danez Smith
Layli Long Soldier
Terrance Hayes
A.E. Stallings
Use 2 MLA Direct Citations per question.
Use the Norton Anthology PDF I attached for finding the Sonnets/Poems please make sure to use a Sonnet if the question is directly asking for one and if you cant find any please let me know!
Essay Questions
Again, write on all THREE of the following questions. Number your answers.
Question 1. What attracts contemporary poets to the sonnet form? Look closely at two sonnets by one or more of the following poets: Danez Smith, Terrance Hayes, A.E. Stallings. Smith, for one, at times deploys what we could see as a very loose version of the sonnet form, but at least one of the poems you choose should follow the conventional definition of the sonnet as a 14-line poem. (If you choose to write about a poem that disregards that definition, be sure to explain why it should still be considered a sonnet.) How does the poet or do the poets you have chosen make use of or reinvent the traditional features of the sonnet: its set length, rhyme patterning, volta, and thematic emphasis on love? How do the contemporary poet or poets you have chosen expand or adapt the features of this Renaissance form to their individual projects and contemporary age?
Question 2. What political meanings arise when 21st-century American poets use languages other than English in their work? Choose two poems by one or more of the following poets: Ocean Vuong, Layli Long Soldier. What does the poet’s choice to translate non-English passages or leave them untranslated say about the goals of their writing and their sense of audience? How do the poems you have chosen resonate with the larger themes of the books in which they appear?
Question 3. Myths are stories that a culture tells itself, to establish or confirm core values and beliefs. This semester we’ve read poems that return to classical Greek and Roman mythology, poems that reevaluate mythologized figures from American history, and poems that create new mythic figures from contemporary American life. Choose two poems by one or more of the following poets that, to your judgment, draw on or refashion mythology in particularly powerful or inventive ways: Ocean Vuong, Danez Smith, Layli Long Soldier, Terrance Hayes, A.E. Stallings. Explain how the poet or poets you have chosen use myth in their work: do they draw on existing myths, make new ones, or some combination of the two? Are their uses of myth sincere or satirical? What significance does myth or myth-making take in their poetry? How do their allusions to old myths or creation of new ones resonate with other goals and interests of their work? In your conclusion, consider what the poems you have chosen say about the continuing relevance of myth or need to remake it.
