The exam will consist of two parts. The first part will consist of discussions of passages from the poems we have read. For each passage, I wil provide the author and title of the work, along with an excerpt. I will ask you to tell about the poem. Begin with an interpretation of the excerpt and some information about the poet, which may include when and where the author published, what group or groups the author is associated with, and a discussion of the author's style. (You don't need to give exact dates or the names of magazines or books the poets publihsed in, but a general indication of the city or country would be good, and it would be good to state whether the poet published prior to 1910, in the teens, or began after 1920, for instance.) You should also place this poem in context of the other works we have read by briefly comparing it to other poems by another poet. You don't need to cite the title of the poem, though it's good if you can, but should at least be able to describe the other poem and name the poet. The other poem should not be one of your other poems on the exam.

The second part will be one or two essay questions. To review for these, answer the following essay questions

What is the Chicago school of poetry?

Who would you put in this group? What influence did they have? What else happened in Chicago to make it an important center for modern poetry?

Why is Yeats considered a modern poet?

What about his poetry is modern? What about it is "traditional"? What connections did he have to other modernist poets?

How die World War I affect modern poetry?

Which poets would you call WWI poets? Which other poets responded to the war? How did the war poetry change the way people viewed poetry?

What is Imagism?

What characteristics did Ezra Pound say should be in an imageist poem? How did later imagists see imagism? Did Pound follow his own rules? Who would you put in this group and why? Who would you say is not an imagist poet? Who claimed not to be? Why?

What kind of poetry (or poetries) do you associate with New York?

Which poets were writing in New York? What similarities do you see in them? How do they see modern poetry as compared to other American writers in other parts of the country or in Europe?

What effect did the Harlem Renaissance have on modern poetry?

What kind of poems did Harlem Renaissance writers write? What themes did they write about? To what extent would you call them modern poems? To what extent would you call them "traditional"? Which other poets inspired some Harlem Renaissance poets?

Is modern poetry intellectual?

Which poets argued for a poetry that was direct and accessible? Which argued for a poetry that was mystical or "literary"? Whose poetry is easiest to understand and whose needs more interpretation? What is the role of intertextuality in modern poetry? What kinds of texts do different poets alude to or quote from in their poems?