9
QuizMultiple Choice

Beat Poetry — Quiz

Question 9 • English Language Arts 11

Read this stanza from Allen Ginsberg’s "A Supermarket in California." We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier. Ginsberg most likely uses long-line free verse here to

Answer
A
draw attention to the poem’s patterns of rhyme and meter.
B
keep the content of the poem simple and easy to imagine.
C
express his thoughts freely and without constraints.
D
show his desire to return to an unassuming existence.

Explanation

Long-line free verse does not follow a regular rhyme scheme or meter, so the lines can move with the speaker’s shifting thoughts and observations. Here, the image of wandering through the supermarket and imagining possession of its food flows freely across the line. This style most strongly suggests that Ginsberg is expressing his thoughts without formal constraints; it is not drawing attention to rhyme and meter.

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