AP Success - AP English Literature: Planetarium
Source 1
A woman in the shape of a monster
a monster in the shape of a woman
the skies are full of thema woman ‘in the snow among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles’in her 98 years to discover
8 cometsshe whom the moon ruled
like us levitating into the night sky
riding the polished lensesGalaxies of women, there doing penance for impetuousness
ribs chilled
in those spaces of the mindAn eye,
‘virile, precise and absolutely certain’ from the mad webs of Uranusborg encountering the NOVAevery impulse of light exploding
from the core as life flies out of us
Tycho whispering at last ‘Let me not seem to have lived in vain’What we see, we see
and seeing is changingthe light that shrivels a mountain
and leaves a man aliveHeartbeat of the pulsar heart sweating through my body
The radio impulse
pouring in from TaurusI am bombarded yet I standI have been standing all my life in the
direct path of a battery of signals the most accurately transmitted most
untranslatable language in the universe I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo- luted that a light wave could take 15
years to travel through me And has
taken I am an instrument in the shape
of a woman trying to translate pulsations
into images for the relief of the body
and the reconstruction of the mind.
Adrienne Rich, "Planetarium" from Collected Poems: 1950-2012. Copyright © 2016 by The Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Copyright © 1971 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc..
Question 1
The phrase "a woman in the shape of a monster / a monster in the shape of a woman" (lines 1-2) primarily serves to:
Question 2
In lines 5-7, the imagery associated with "a woman 'in the snow / among the Clocks and instruments / or measuring the ground with poles'" most directly suggests:
Question 3
The mention of "8 comets" in line 10 most likely symbolizes:
Question 4
The phrase "she whom the moon ruled" (line 12) implies that the woman:
Question 5
The reference to "Galaxies of women" in line 17 most likely symbolizes:
Question 6
The description of the eye as "virile, precise and absolutely certain" (line 24) contrasts with the earlier depictions of women by suggesting:
Question 7
The term "NOVA" in line 27 metaphorically represents:
Question 8
In lines 37-38, "What we see, we see / and seeing is changing" suggests that:
Question 9
The comparison of a heartbeat to "the pulsar" (line 43) serves to:
Question 10
The passage concludes with the speaker identifying as "an instrument in the shape of a woman" (line 58), which suggests:
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