Hurricane Season

The following lines mainly refer to (lines 10-12).

I’ve learned that my purpose is flooding.

I want to form inundacions of words and earn

the title of a Category Four. Drought relief and filler of bayou banks.

• the ability to write powerful poetry.

• humanitarian efforts following natural disasters.

• the desire to eventually become a farmer.

• an affinity for wetlands and other rain-soaked areas.

Answer explanation

A. Correct. The speaker wants to become a great force by using words to affect people through poetry.

Which of these statements is most likely a reason the speaker chose to use hurricanes to describe her coming of age?

• The speaker is studying to become a meteorologist while writing poetry as a hobby.

• Poetry should deal with primarily dark subject matter.

• It’s eerie how hurricanes would regularly occur on her birthday.

• Hurricanes are a force that shaped the city she grew up in, and the city in turn shaped her.

Answer explanation

D. Correct. The speaker repeatedly references both hurricanes shaping her city, and the city shaping her as a person.

Which of these inferences is best supported by the following lines of the poem (lines 4-6)?

I’ve heard that a child playing on the coast in Africa

can cause the start of a hurricane in the Atlantic and maybe

a working immigrant in Toronto can be the origin of a poet in Houston.

• The speaker believes that nothing happens without a reason.

• The majority of hurricanes could be prevented with proper care.

• The working immigrant in Toronto is the speaker’s mother or father.

• Toronto is a city that frequently suffers from natural disasters.

Answer explanation

C. Correct. The poet in Houston is likely referring to the speaker, and the “origin” probably refers to one of the speaker’s parent.

Which selection from the text best supports the correct answer to Question 3?

• “I watched my city build itself up again after Hurricane Ike and / I guess we are both having growing pains.”

• “My favorite smell is rain / falling through concrete and cumin because they combine homes.”

• “My ninth birthday was suspended in the space between cyclone and serene.”

• “Inhaling atmospheric pressure of a tropical storm / in the eye of hurricane season felt like bayou backwash / of building Rothko layers.”

Answer explanation

A. Correct. This line explicitly connects hurricanes to the development of the city, and to the speaker’s growth as a person.

How does the poet indicate the passage of time in the poem? Why do you think the poet chose to deal with time this way?

Keeping the rest of the poem in mind, how do you think the speaker can be a “drop of water falling in multiple places”?

Arefeen uses the image of a hurricane to express a wide variety of personal experiences; at times the speaker seems to be the hurricane itself, while at other times the speaker seems to be in the midst of experiencing a hurricane. Is the image of a hurricane in this poem creative, destructive, or both?

Throughout the poem, the speaker examines her relationship to “the city.” This relationship is dynamic, however, and seems to change as the poem progresses. Address how the speaker’s relationship with the city changes throughout the poem.

labyrinth

• 
  of or relating to the atmosphere

• a complicated network of hallways or paths

• 
  a violent rotating windstorm

• the movement or arrangement of a circle

radial

• 
  of or relating to the atmosphere

• a complicated network of hallways or paths

• 
  a violent rotating windstorm

• the movement or arrangement of a circle