Poetry Quiz

Well, son, I'll tell you:/ Life for me ain't been no crystal stair./ It's had tacks in it,/ And splinters,/ And boards torn up,/ And places with no carpet on the floor--/ Bare. (Langston Hughes, 'Mother to Son')

• Metaphor

• Hyperbole

• Idiom

• Personification

The prisoner would not answer, he only lay with wide, dark, bright, eyes (D. H. Lawrence, England, My England)

• Pun

• Onomatopoeia

• Alliteration

• Oxymoron

The earth laughs beneath my heavy feet/ At the blasphemy in my old jangly walk (Billy Corgan, 'Thirty-three')

• Personification

• Hyperbole

• Simile

• Idiom

I dig my toes into the sand. / The ocean looks like/ A thousand diamonds strewn / Across a blue blanket. (Incubus, 'Wish You Were Here')

• Metaphor

• Analogy

• Simile

• Hyperbole

Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary (Edgar Allan Poe)

• Onomatopoeia

• Idiom

• Pun

• Alliteration

Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle (Edgar Allan Poe)

• Onomatopoeia

• Alliteration

• Oxymoron

• Hyperbole

What is the Rhyme Scheme of the first stanza?

• ABAAB

• ABABA

• ACCBA

• ABBAC

In stanza one, which statement best describes the speaker's issue?

• They are lost in the woods.

• They are not sure where the paths lead.

• They want to take both paths but cannot.

• They want another traveler to survey the path.

In stanza two, what does the speaker decide?

• To choose a road randomly

• To turn around and go home

• To take the first, more traveled road

• To take the second, less traveled road

In stanza three, how does the speaker feel about returning to the first road "another day?"

• Uncertain

• Triumphant

• Suspicious

• Excited